The relentless growth and democratisation of big data, the criticality of business management processes, the rise of subscription-based models and packaged enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are likely to be key business and technology trends in 2015.
“In 2015, solutions providers must exceed the expectations of business decision makers," says Bradley Stroop, CEO, UXC Eclipse.
"They will need to provide customised solutions that identify business needs and add value to the entire business, while offering substantial commercial and financial insights.
“They must do all of this while managing the expansion of big data and business intelligence, overcoming the risks of subscription-based models and delivering efficient software solutions and systems.”
The key trends for 2015 are:
1) Democratisation of big data, business intelligence and analytics
Big data used to be limited to large enterprises that handled massive numbers of transactions.
Now, big data, business intelligence and analytics are coming to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
In the past, SMBs that worked with large enterprises needed to employ external analytics to effectively use the big data produced by larger companies. The rise of knowledge around big data will see SMBs start deploying business intelligence and analytics internally.
This new capability to deploy business intelligence and analytics internally will help SMBs to save costs and increase flexibility when responding to market challenges and sharpening their competitive edge.
2) Business Process Management (BPM) will become business-critical
The perception that BPM isn’t business-critical will start to change. Increasing business complexity means companies that don’t retain a firm grip on every operational facet risk failing to deliver ongoing stakeholder value.
BPM delivers a 360-degree view of business processes, letting ERP consultants design and implement a solution that fits organisational needs perfectly.
This reduces the time and costs associated with having to make non value-adding modifications and customisations during and after the implementation.
Organisations will begin to realise that an ERP implementation is not about technology. It is about solving business challenges. So it is critical to ask the right questions to get a solution that matches the business need.