According to industry reports, the enterprise resource planning (ERP) market will be worth $148 billion in the next 12 months. This growth presents a golden opportunity for enterprise solutions providers. With this comes a familiar challenge for providers: ensuring consistently smooth, efficient ERP data migration and secure data management—crucial steps in the client onboarding process.
A successful data migration strategy mitigates disruption to business operations and lays the framework for long-term client satisfaction and platform adoption.
The Impact of Data Migration on ERP Onboarding
Data migration is more than a singular technical task: it is a strategic process essential to the ERP implementation journey. Whether you are migrating data for a manufacturing giant, a financial institution, or a public administration body, data integrity and accuracy are paramount. Poor data migration can lead to operational disruptions, loss of critical information, and even compliance violations or security breaches.
Successful data migration requires meticulous planning, validation, and testing to ensure that the new ERP system fully supports the organization's business processes on day one.
Obstacles in the Data Migration Process for ERP Providers
According to Gartner, 83% of data migrations fail. Common causes include missing information, a lack of stakeholder engagement, and poor project management. Here’s a closer look at some challenges that can arise through the process.
Data Loss or Corruption
One of the most severe risks during data migration is the loss or corruption of data. When moving data from legacy systems, extraction, and transformation errors lead to incomplete or incorrect records. This is particularly concerning in industries like finance and healthcare, where accurate data is critical to daily operations and compliance, saying nothing of customers or patients.
Featuring automated data validation and error-checking, Setuply helps catch and correct potential issues before they become problems. Additionally, the platform allows auditing and cleaning of legacy data before transfer, reducing the risk of moving insufficient data onto your new ERP.
Inaccurate Data Mapping
If handled incorrectly, mapping legacy data fields to the new ERP system can lead to severe mismatches. This often results in errors in workflows, reporting, and business processes. Through purposeful mapping processes, the likelihood of missing critical data is reduced. Setuply provides robust data mapping templates that guarantee every data field from your legacy system finds its place in the ERP migration.
Poor Data Quality
Legacy systems often house outdated, incomplete, or erroneous data, and migrating this without proper validation can compromise the entire ERP implementation. Poor data quality may lead to inaccurate forecasting and missed KPIs, causing long-term negative impacts.
Setuply’s powerful rules engine zeroes in on data inaccuracies and omissions with a high level of granularity, such as identifying appropriate formats and data types. Additionally, Setuply’s collaborative platform ensures that all stakeholders can communicate and make critical decisions with high-quality data.
Incomplete Data Migration
Data dependencies in legacy systems may cause only partial data to be exported, leading to significant disruptions in areas like financial reporting or customer information.
Setuply’s platform allows for multiple rounds of data testing and user acceptance testing (UAT) to ensure every piece of critical data makes it into the new ERP system.
Security and Compliance Risks
Improper handling of sensitive data during migration exposes companies to data breaches or compliance violations, especially in highly regulated industries. According to an IBM press release, the global average cost of a data breach is nearly $4.9M USD as of Summer 2024.
All data transferred through Setuply is encrypted and secured to meet the highest compliance standards. The platform uses state-of-the-art security protocols, ensuring client data remains protected throughout the migration process.
Best Practices For A Smooth ERP Data Migration
In addition to leveraging purpose-built solutions to overcome data migration challenges, going beyond just technology and implementing best practices will ensure even greater success. Here are a few key strategies to help streamline the process and enhance your ERP implementation.
1. Establish Clear Data Migration Objectives
Set precise goals for what data needs to be migrated (e.g., historical transactions, customer information) and the accuracy level required for each data set. With clear data objectives and visibility from the outset, your team and the client are aligned, reducing the chances of scope creep or unexpected delays.
2. Perform a Comprehensive Data Audit
Before any migration occurs, conducting a full audit of your legacy data is crucial. This allows you to identify missing, duplicate, or inaccurate data that could cause later problems.
Work with clients to clean and standardize the data before migration begins. Setting clear expectations on data quality can prevent many post-migration headaches.
3. Use Phased Testing and Validation
Data migration should not be treated as a one-time event. Phased testing allows you to catch problems early by initially migrating small amounts of data before scaling up.
Conduct multiple rounds of testing, including UAT, to ensure data behaves as expected in real-world scenarios. Setuply's platform makes it easy to run phased migrations and catch any issues before a full transfer.
4. Ensure Post-Migration Support
Even after a successful data migration, issues may arise as the client begins to use the new ERP. A robust post-migration support plan is essential.
Setuply offers ongoing support to resolve any issues that may surface post-launch. Our platform tracks system performance and flags any data-related issues for timely resolution.
5. Collaborate With A Centralized Onboarding Platform
Using a centralized, secure data management platform like Setuply ensures a seamless transfer from legacy systems to a new ERP. By reducing the risks of post-migration issues such as system errors or data corruption, Setuply helps facilitate smoother onboarding experiences for both providers and clients.
Security and compliance are top priorities for Setuply. Throughout the migration process, all data is encrypted, ensuring the platform adheres to the highest industry standards for data protection. ERP providers can trust that their client's data is secure, minimizing the risk of compliance violations and safeguarding sensitive information.
Setuply's automation tools also streamline the data migration process by making it easy to gather client data with templates or customized forms. You can import data from multiple sources and in a variety of formats, making it scalable across client bases of any size without compromising quality or speed.
Take the First Step Toward Smooth ERP Onboarding
Demand for efficient, reliable data migration solutions will only grow as the ERP market expands. With Setuply on your side, organizations can overcome the obstacles associated with data migration and create for themselves opportunities for smooth, repeatable, and scalable onboarding processes. Smoother onboarding ensures client satisfaction and positions everyone for long-term success.
Ready to see the leading client onboarding platform in action? Contact Setuply for a demo today.