ERP plays a vital role in any business operations. Without an ERP system the organizations suffer with more complications. Recent survey shows a major migration of companies into ERP systems. Whether they are using a legacy system or an older version of ERP system, in both the cases it is obvious to come across a process called data migration. Let us see what data migration holds with the business performance and what are the measures to be taken to ensure the success rate.
What is Data Migration in an ERP system ?
The process of transferring the data from one system to another is called the data migration. Companies might have a variety of information from various systems and various departments. The data originates from departments like finance, accounts, customer information, production, purchase, inventory, human resources and so many others. Each and every data is a crucial factor for a smooth running of the business. Hence this process needs more care and accuracy at the end.
Why is it an important factor to consider ?
The ERP system data migration procedure is the critical phase in the implementation process. Even before the implementation starts there is so much to be prepared in prior to ensure the success of ERP implementation. A company’s growth, its performance, its future plan everything is a number and that number comes from a standard information. The accuracy in transferring the data plays as a major success factor. This further eases the implementation process faster and smoother.
What are the challenges faced ?
Data migration is a serious decision that should be handled with utmost care. It is a time consuming process. The complete business operations after the implementation depends purely on this data that is being transferred. Hence there are few challenges faced during the process before it achieves an efficient migration.
- Not minimizing the redundancy of data – It is obvious that the legacy system will hold all those unwanted/duplicate data. This will lead to slowing down the data migration. Hence it is good to initiate the cleaning process to speed up the migration.
- Cooperation of employees – It is critical to gain support from all the employees as there might be some conflicts during the transfer. This must be avoided and make sure that everyone between the branches and departments come to the terms.
- Regulatory issues – A company should always follow the regulation as per the standards to maintain a quality operation. While moving the data from legacy systems to ERP systems, we must ensure to keep up with recent regulations.
Best practices for successful data migration :
Set up a team : In order to collect and consolidate the data from various departments, it is a good practice to allocate each person to clean the unwanted data. It is to be understood that the success factor of optimizing the business operations entirely depends upon the data you enter into the system.
Data analysis : After collecting the data, you have to perform an analysis to prevent excessive information going into the final database. The are 3 different kinds of business data,
1.Master data – It is the standard essential data that deals with the core business functions. It completely describes each and every part of the operational areas.
2.Historical data – The data that is over two years old.
3.Live data – All your current and recent data.
These kinds of data should be segregated first and then to be assigned the priority that is to be migrated. This is a little complicated and hence I need to overlook it before migration starts.
Testing and deployment : Once the data is cleaned and segregated to a consolidated database the next step would be to test the data in the final structure. This phase will provide a better understanding of the result from each department. Hence to ensure you are on the right path towards optimization, this step is required. The deployment allows you to check and fix the issues for further process.
Training to the employees : Since till this process, you have involved only your older employees with good knowledge on your business for years. It is now time to train all other employees from all the departments. The training should be well effective in transferring the knowledge as it would completely reflect on the business performance. The business as a whole operates with the contribution from each labor, hence this phase must be efficiently done without any compromises.
Evaluate : Any change management would definitely require an evaluation phase to get the understanding of the efficiency change. You can start doing this process after a year of migration to see more precise results. The evaluation can be done in different areas such as productivity, customer satisfaction, inventory levels, workflow, cash flow and meeting demands on time.
Conclusion :
Switching to a completely different working environment might be beneficial but not that easy to adapt. Data migration is one crucial phase that needs much preparation prior. Having a clear cut plan and a neat strategy is a mandatory factor to achieve successful migration.