Guidelines for selecting emerging technology features for cloud erp

Fayed A.M.

Ezzat M.O.

Awny M.M.

Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness

Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) permeate every aspect of work and life. For example, in the supply chain management: IoT-networked sensors can provide real-time insight into the provenance of goods and materials, supplier performance, available capacity, predictive demand and other key data. In turn, this data can feed autonomous and intelligent processes that “learn” how to respond to changing circumstances. Classical ERP systems do not support this distributed innovation. Emerging Technologies in Cloud ERP are what brings the data and action together, reducing non-value-adding work and freeing up humans for more attention to strategic effort to grant the business and “delight” customers. Based on the experience of individuals involved in ERP implementation, it is concluded that organizations should stop thinking about AI, Machine Learning, IoT and Blockchain as disruptive challenges they need to overcome. On the contrary, it has become critical that companies invest time and money in understanding how these new emerging technologies can impact their business and drive innovation across their organization. The main purpose of this paper is to provide some guidelines for companies intended to upgrade their traditional ERP to gain from cloud ERP with combinatorial effects of emerging technologies such as AI, Blockchain and IoT. The paper also tries to answer the question, which emerging technology features should be required when procuring Cloud ERP Systems. The impact of AI on the Cloud ERP modules is discussed. In particular, the benefits of the application of AI technology in marketing, procurement, finance, inventory, human resources, planning, manufacturing, sales and services are investigated. © 2020 Towards the Digital World and Industry X.0 - Proceedings of the 29th International Conference of the International Association for Management of Technology, IAMOT 2020. All rights reserved.