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ERP is considered complicated and is poorly understood even by businesses that have been using it for years. However, a recent post on Diginomica by John Appleby of Avantra explains why now is the time for CIOs to bring ERP into true workflow automation. So the question is, can AIOps help with this?
Enterprise Resource Management is the consolidated process of gathering data through integrated software. ERP software usually consists of applications that automate processes such as production, sales quoting and accounting among other things.
In the original article, John Appleby explains that in the 90s and early 00s most enterprises took the decision to make use of systems integrators, all in an attempt to consolidate their legacy applications into ERP. It’s also noted that in most instances, the ERP operations team never actually left even after everything was configured.
One of the common problems with ERP data and operations is that silos linger with them, even in 2021. It’s not an unusual concept to have an extensive team of people on hand to keep SAP and other applications running and up to date, along with taking care of security and audit needs due to the complexity of integrating SAP into IT operations.
One of the true values within AIOps for ERP solutions is that the historical incidents and knowledge bases are considered to be gold for the possibilities automation brings. In a number of cases, one of the issues causing a fault is usually a well known one. Take security for example, a vulnerability released requires configuration changes. In this instance, it’s important to identify (observe), communicate to business users (engage) and finally set up the parameter automatically (act).
One of the main reasons that ERP is considered so complicated and that it is poorly understood is because businesses have been content just leaving their systems alone on an “island” as John Appleby puts it. However, until this problem is tackled, automation of workflow is almost impossible.
John Appleby also stated the following in the original article: “It may now be time to rethink this, because the tools and platforms now exist to achieve a semi-autonomous IT operations environment and integrate applications like SAP into your centralized IT Operations processes.”
To read more in-depth, click the following link to see the original article: https://diginomica.com/dear-cio-get-your-erp-island
Release ID: 89029736