Introduction
In today’s fast-paced business environment, having real-time access to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) data is crucial. However, many companies struggle with integrating this data efficiently. A global survey by Dimensional Research revealed that 99% of respondents face significant obstacles in developing reliable data pipelines, with only 23% having access to real-time ERP Data insights. This stale data can lead to poor decision-making and significant business implications.
Cloudaeon is a specialist in the retail industry and this blog is written from the perspective of the retail clients we help overcome the challenges faced in getting insights from their ERP data. We look specifically at how Cloudaeon’s approach helps by replicating ERP data in real-time to a Data Lakehouse environment.
Challenges faced by Retail Customers and how Cloudaeon solves them.
1. Data Silos
Challenge: Retailers often have data stored in multiple systems, such as inventory management, CRM, and POS systems. Integrating these disparate data sources into a unified data lake is complex. For example, a retailer using SAP for inventory management and Oracle for CRM might struggle to integrate customer purchase data with inventory levels in real-time, leading to inefficiencies.
Market Insight: A market study revealed that 89% of companies struggle with data and system integration, highlighting the widespread issue of data silos.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon’s data replication accelerators seamlessly replicates data from various sources, breaking down silos and providing a unified view of your data. This enables real-time insights and more efficient operations.
2. Data Quality
Challenge: Ensuring high-quality data is crucial for advanced analytics to function correctly. Inconsistent or inaccurate data can lead to poor insights. If a retailer’s SAP system has outdated product information and the other CRM system has incomplete customer data, the ERP data might produce unreliable insights, affecting demand forecasting and customer recommendations.
Market Insight: According to Forrester, poor data quality is a significant barrier to successful analytics implementation, affecting 60% of companies.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon employs advanced data cleansing and validation techniques to ensure that your data is accurate and reliable. This enhances the quality of analytic reports and ensures trustworthy insights.
3. Complex Data Transformation
Challenge: Converting data from various formats into a unified structure is time-consuming and technically challenging. A retailer might have sales data in a CSV format from their POS system, customer data in an SQL database within ERP, and inventory data in ERP proprietary format. Transforming these into a consistent format for data analysis requires significant effort and expertise.
Market Insight: The data integration market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 10% between 2023 and 2032, driven by the need to consolidate and harmonise diverse data sources.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon’s data transformation tools automate the process of converting data into a unified format, saving time and reducing the complexity of data integration.
4. Scalability
Challenge: Handling large volumes of data efficiently is essential for real-time processing and decision-making. During peak shopping seasons, a retailer’s systems might generate massive amounts of data. Ensuring that the ERP data replication can scale to process this data in real-time without performance degradation is a significant challenge.
Market Insight: The global ERP software market is expected to reach $78.4 billion by 2026, indicating the increasing volume of data that needs to be managed.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon’s scalable architecture ensures that your data replication processes can handle large volumes of data efficiently, even during peak times. This guarantees real-time processing and timely decision-making.
5. Data Security and Compliance
Challenge: Protecting sensitive data and ensuring compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA is critical. A retailer using SAP and Oracle must ensure that customer data is securely integrated and processed in compliance with data protection laws. Any breach or non-compliance can lead to severe legal and financial repercussions.
Market Insight: Data security concerns are a major challenge in the data integration market, with increasing regulatory compliance requirements.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon implements robust security measures and compliance protocols to protect your data and ensure adherence to regulations. This minimizes the risk of data breaches and legal issues.
6. Real-Time Data Processing
Challenge: Replicating and processing data in real-time is essential for timely decision-making but is technically challenging. A retailer needs real-time insights to manage inventory levels dynamically. Accessing to real-time sales data from Oracle with inventory data from SAP to adjust stock levels on-the-fly requires robust and efficient data processing capabilities.
Market Insight: Forrester highlights that real-time data integration is critical for modern data and analytics requirements, including real-time customer 360 and data intelligence.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon’s real-time data replication processing capabilities ensure that your data is always up-to-date, enabling dynamic inventory management and other time sensitive operations.
7. Cost and Resource Constraints
Challenge: Implementing advanced analytics with ERP data requires significant investment in technology and skilled personnel. A mid-sized retailer might find it challenging to allocate the necessary budget and resources to implement and maintain an integration system that connects SAP and Oracle ERP systems.
Market Insight: The cost of ERP implementation is a significant barrier, with many companies struggling to allocate sufficient budget and resources.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon offers cost-effective data replication solutions that reduce the need for extensive resources and investment. Our services are designed to deliver high value at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.
8. Technical and Functional Expertise
Challenge: Enabling advance analytics with data from various ERP system requires specialized knowledge in Data integration, AI, machine learning, and data engineering. Finding and retaining professionals with expertise in multiple ERP systems like SAP, Oracle systems can be difficult. This expertise is crucial for successfully implementing and maintaining the integration.
Market Insight: Talent and skill shortages are a significant challenge in ERP integration, affecting many businesses.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon’s team of experts brings extensive experience in Technical (Data engineering, Data analytics, AI and machine learning) and functional (ERP systems) knowledge to implement and maintain your data replication solutions effectively.
9. Highly Customised ERP
Challenge: ERP systems are often highly customizable to suit the unique requirements of businesses. While this flexibility is an advantage, it can also lead to complexity and increased maintenance efforts. Heavy customization can make it challenging to implement updates or integrate new solutions without disrupting operations.
Market Insight: A study found that 57% of companies face significant challenges due to the complexity of customizing and configuring their ERP systems.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Cloudaeon replication services which uses transaction logs of the ERP system to ensure the right change set is captured. Ensuring your ERP system remains untouched without violating the Master Services Agreement (MSA). Our experts assist in replicating data from your ERP system to meet your specific needs without overcomplicating the setup.
10. Resistance to Change
Challenge: Employees may resist adopting new ERP systems due to unfamiliarity or fear of change. This resistance can hinder the successful implementation and utilisation of the system.
Market Insight: Research indicates that 70% of change management initiatives fail due to employee resistance and lack of management support.
Cloudaeon’s Solution: Our solution is not to change the existing ERP system instead analytics is performed on a modern data platform designed for the purpose by replicating data from multiple sources to enable easy access of ERP data.
Cloudaeon’s Innovation Lab:
Apply for our Beta program and get a proof of value in 4 week for free
To help businesses overcome these challenges, Cloudaeon is offering a 4-week free access of our data replication services through the innovation lab beta program. This allows companies to experience firsthand benefits of real-time ERP data replication without any initial investment.
Benefits of Real-Time ERP Data replication
- Enhanced Decision-Making: Access to real-time ERP data significantly enhances faster, smarter decision-making. Data-driven decisions are proven to boost efficiency, accuracy, and operational performance.
- Competitive Edge: Companies that integrate ERP data in real-time gain a substantial business advantage over those struggling with outdated batch processing.
- Cost Savings: By eliminating the need for costly and complex data replication processes, businesses can save both time and money.
Conclusion
In today’s dynamic business environment, the ability to access ERP data in real-time is crucial for informed decision-making and optimizing business processes. Cloudaeon’s Innovation Lab provides a solution that overcomes the traditional challenges of ERP data integration, offering substantial business benefits and a competitive edge. Take advantage of our 4-week beta to see how Cloudaeon can transform your data strategy.
Sources: Gartner, Forrester and Dimensional data
About Cloudaeon
Cloudaeon is a world-renowned solution provider specializing in data integration and real-time ERP insights. With a global presence, Cloudaeon leverages advanced AI and machine learning technologies to help businesses streamline their data processes, enhance decision-making, and achieve operational efficiency. Their innovative solutions and commitment to excellence make them a trusted partner for companies looking to overcome the challenges of ERP data integration. Visit Cloudaeon to learn more about their services.
