Four Ways To Modernize Your Core Business Applications

Are your legacy on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) suites preventing you from delivering excellent, innovative digital operations? Then you probably need to replace them with modern, smart, adaptive software such as the new breed of applications that Forrester calls the digital operations platform (DOP). However, ERP replacement will be a long, expensive, risky, and distracting program, and many CIOs have more urgent priorities right now. This session cuts through the hype about digital transformation and explains why digital evolution may be a more practical path to digital operations. It also suggests four practical ways to improve your core business applications in the short term while you map out your longer-term roadmap to a modern DOP.

Key takeaways:

• Modern digital operations platforms will eventually replace inflexible, outdated ERP suites.
• Application development and delivery leaders should adopt eclectic strategies that combine a DOP core with specialist application suites for processes such as procurement, eCommerce, and talent management.
• However, enterprisewide ERP replacement is expensive and risky and could be a distraction from higher priorities right now.
• Digital evolution — combining specialist software-as-a-service applications with low-code development tools — is a practical way to modernize business operations without, for now, discarding your stable ERP core.

Target audience level: beginner and intermediate

Vendors mentioned: Infor, Oracle, and SAP.