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D E - R I S K I N G D ATA M I G R AT I O N
ata Migration is to most ERP projects what taking the lights down is to Christmas. It’s something that you know you have to do, wish you didn’t and put off for as long as possible. It is an oddity - when we are constantly ‘educated’ about the value of data - that most customers view their most prized asset as a burdensome issue that is pushed as far down the agenda as possible and often left to ‘someone in IT’ to manage.
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IS OFTEN THE WEAKEST LINK IN ERP IMPLEMENTATIONS. De-risking your ERP project is a critical component of a successful outcome. Whilst it’s true that all upgrades, reimplementations and migrations carry some risk – there are a number of ways that you can reduce the opportunities
for something to go wrong. As a baseline, it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a global Workday rollout, IQMS in a manufacturer or an obscure bit of kit used only by tobacconists – the applications work just fine. The issue with getting ERP projects to deliver value and efficiency is often only related to two things – data and people. We deal with the human element elsewhere in this edition when we endeavour to coach programme spon-
sors to ‘get a tune’ out of your project team. So that leaves us with data, and more specifically data migration, as the other most likely cause of ERP implementation misery. But don’t despair. Data migration doesn’t have to be dull, difficult or defeating. There are some fundamental checks and balances that all ERP customers should consider when thinking about moving their data from one system to another.
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teve Pullee, CEO at Egress , a specialist data migration company that has completed more than 500 large-scale migrations said: “Data migration is a crucial element of any ERP project and embedding a sound DM strategy as a core component of your ERP journey is essential. However, it is often perceived as a simple, one time, ‘lift and shift’ process that can be managed by existing head count with SQL skills or by leveraging a locally devised ETL tool to deliver the required out-
DM IS A CRUCIAL ELEMENT OF ANY ERP PROJECT AND EMBEDDING A SOUND DATA MIGRATION STRATEGY AS A CORE COMPONENT OF YOUR ERP JOURNEY IS ESSENTIAL
_STEVE PULLEE
158
E R P T O D AY
| Q2 2019
