What ERP or maybe not ERP? What’s the right move for CFOs and CIOs?

Well, who the hamlet knows… but for scaling businesses currently considering the likes of BC, Netsuite or SAP, there’s at least good reason to also consider none of them.

In talks with finance leaders, we learn that they procrastinate the move to an ERP-environment as long as possible. It’s almost like they’re waiting for something new to come and save the day. 

Obviously an ERP-implementation is resource-intensive, takes focus from the daily business and is near impossible to complete within time plan and budget. But it also means adopting technology and thinking of the past, that’s not necessarily the right choice for a growing business just because it’s getting bigger.

What alternatives do finance and IT leaders have?

Today’s market offers a myriad of independent services, platforms and tools to help finance operations fulfill their respective responsibilities really well. Yet CFOs often feel like they want the scalability of a single environment, where every part of operations come together (in theory). At the same time nobody wants to replace old monoliths with new monoliths just doing slightly different things or things slightly different, that will eventually end up as ERPs anyway.

Is there another way? A way to use the unique mix of vendors that a business prefers, while getting the scalability benefits of a single environment, without being bound by the requirements of an ERP. Future will tell. Until then…

Scratx enables a different approach

We believe that “one platform” is a myth, and our opinion is that it’s borderline fraudulent. At least in the long run. How can one platform promise to solve everything finance, when markets, and businesses are constantly evolving in a process of creative destruction?

We believe that the future of ERP is distributed and decentralised. In the wake of the fall of legacy ERPs, many new ways will emerge for managing system stack and finance operations more independently. Even if CFOs want a single environment, they may not need one as they currently know it.

Financial scaffolding for scaling commerce businesses 

At Scratx we like to use the analogy of our platform as financial “scaffolding” for scaling businesses. As our customers build their businesses, we help them leverage their preferred tech stack and solve problems in flexible ways at scale, without aiming to build walls around them, nor forcing them in to unwanted processes.

Our products are designed to make it easy to adapt finance operations to changes in the tech stack. We help you harness the power of harmonized transaction data to automate the most business critical tasks. We will not solve all your problems, but so will not an ERP either.

Scratx is definitely not building an ERP, instead we can help your scaling business to procrastinate the move to an ERP as long as you want. Hopefully as long as to see the day when you don’t need an ERP at all.

Call to (non) action for CFOs and CIOs: 5 reasons to procrastinate the move to / change of ERP

1. There are more important investments that deserve your time and capital and that increase top line 
2. It’s hard to make the right choice of ERP when the selection in the market is based on legacy technology and thinking
3. Going to a monolithic platform forces you into their processes, and/or requires build of custom applications to match your unique requirements causing endless consultancy hours
4. There will emerge less resource-intensive ways to manage system and data stack at scale in the near future
5. There are current alternatives that can help you leverage your existing tech stack and scale your business through no-code automation solutions

Keep procrastinating and find less distracting ways to scale your business. Be patient, and believe in a better future. One that maybe is not entirely ERP-free, but it’s likely way less resource-intensive, less custom and more free.