In this article, Jan Gilg of Cloud ERP at SAP explores how cloud ERP (enterprise resource planning) impacts the future of work, accelerates digital transformation and improves future business productivity.
It is hard to turn on the radio or television today and not hear a story about generative artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to upend our daily lives. While the fears of autonomous Terminator style robots make great headlines, the everyday utility of AI – from unlocking your phone with your face to binge watching a series recommended to you by Netflix – is often overlooked.
Despite this, U.S. tech leaders have been summoned to the White House as government leaders express concerns that “AI will be used by bad actors to cause real damageOpens a new window .” These fears about the misuse of technology for nefarious ends are nothing new. In fact, in the 15th century, there was widespread belief that Gutenberg’s printing press would create problems, even as it brought knowledge, news, science, art, and literature to the world.
The Need for Outcome driven Technology
The lesson here is that no matter how incredible, technology cannot be separated from the goals and the outcomes it is used to achieve.
This is especially evident in the exponential growth of cloud computing. When the global cloud computing market surpassed a staggering $300 billionOpens a new window in 2021, we knew that we had entered a new era of technological innovation. The driving force was not just another software breakthrough or hardware advancement but the disruption of markets by a global pandemic that caused a paradigm shift in how organizations manage scalability, cost efficiency, and agility. This created a recipe for a thriving cloud computing ecosystem that empowers businesses to navigate the complexities of the modern world.
In 2021, the analyst firm Gartner forecasted that worldwide public cloud end user spending is to reach nearly $600 billion by the end of 2023 and also found that the majority of ERP revenue came from the cloud.1 As the pace of innovation increases and the availability of new tools and services expands, business leaders are turning to the cloud to not only prepare for whatever lies ahead but actually drive revenue.
The cloud itself is not the goal, though. It is the vehicle on your organization’s journey to achieve its goals. Just as end users don’t care about the model of server hosting their business’ IT, the cloud is simply a means towards a business outcome—one cog within a larger machine. IT decisions are influenced by several different factors, whether it be the sensitivity and gravity of the data, the locality and level of availability required, or the need to scale their ERP systems up and down.