ERP's place in the cloud: Measuring core and two-tier adoption

In a traditional sense, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are often viewed as bulky, company-wide solutions that must be purchased, licensed, installed, and supported on premise. With the advent of cloud computing and other alternative hosting options, however, a larger spotlight is being put on the idea of ERP in the cloud for running core business functions. The advantages of this delivery mechanism align with the typical perks of going in to the cloud - faster implementation times, lower IT costs, no need for additional hardware, easier updates, and so forth.

That list of advantages appears to be gaining traction amongst companies that are either upgrading existing ERPs or starting from scratch. In fact, a new study from Gartner reveals a healthy appetite for cloud-based ERP systems from companies looking to replace aging core ERP systems that are either out of support or running on old technology platforms (like mainframes).

For Survey Analysis: Adoption of Cloud ERP, 2013 Through 2023, Gartner analyst Nigel Rayner covers the results of a Gartner Research Circle survey, which concluded that nearly half of companies plan to move core ERP systems to the cloud. Gartner points to small, midsized, and service-centric industries as those most apt to embrace cloud ERP, and reports that adoption rates are broadly similar by region (although EMEA - Europe, Middle East, and Africa - lags in short-term adoption).

Veteran enterprise software analyst and executive (and currently in product marketing for Plex Systems) Louis Columbus is more bullish on ERP's place in the cloud than Gartner is. In his blog post Why cloud ERP adoption is faster than Gartner predicts, he writes that including ...