Though Oracle has been pushing a cloud-dominant agenda, the company recently announced plans to extend support for their JD Edwards on-premises ERP solution for a rolling 10-year period. This is welcome news for long-time JD Edwards users who have plans to continue investing in and upgrading their ERP for the next several years.

But while the extended support comes as a welcome announcement for JD Edwards’ dedicated user base, it also raises an interesting question: Why in 2020 are companies still hesitant to move to the cloud?

The Case for On-Premises

Many companies continue to invest in their on-premises ERP and will for years to come. Instead of trying to adapt to something new, these companies may plan to optimize what they already have.

Companies treat their financial data differently. They may be willing to experiment with the cloud in other parts of their business, but feel that they can’t put the quality, consistency, security, or availability of financial data in jeopardy. Thus, their ERP remains on-premises. Unless there is a very strong compelling reason to move their financials onto a cloud financial platform, companies simply may not take the risk.

The maturity of cloud ERP is another issue with slowing rates of adoption. Cloud ERP has come a long way in recent years in terms of functionality and security. However, it’s not 100 percent mature yet, and many companies are willing to wait for cloud ERP to fully mature before planning their transition.

Customization can’t be discounted either. Many companies have carefully personalized their ERP over the years to fit their unique financial function. Cloud ERP cannot adapt in the same ways without intensive effort. For some, making do with the ERP they have is better than trying to adapt to a mostly one-size-fits-all cloud solution.

Easy Ways to Supplement Your JD Edwards ERP

Users who love JD Edwards don’t have to make major changes, but they shouldn’t resist change either. As companies become more data-driven, especially in terms of finance, old approaches require review and revision, or replacement.

The hybrid cloud represents one option: using on-premises ERP combined with cloud-based applications like procure to pay, project management, or supply chain management cloud. This encompasses a broad range of areas that lend to a cloud approach. Done well, this approach offers the best of both worlds, but won’t necessarily be easy to calibrate and maintain indefinitely.

Another option is to supplement your on-premises JD Edwards ERP to make up for missing or underpowered features. For example, a dedicated financial reporting tool makes it easy to extract data from the ERP in the form of tailor-made insights. Whether your ERP is on-premises or cloud, it lacks the ability to give finance end users a solid experience for financial and operational reporting. Companies don’t need to move to the cloud and disrupt the foundations of finance just to improve financial transparency and data-driven decision making. You can achieve the same thing in a fraction of the time, at a lower cost, and with lesser disruption by simply adding to your on-premises toolkit.

Now it’s even easier to add on to your existing JD Edwards ERP toolkit. Try Hubble insightsoftware’s JD Edwards reporting solution FREE for 60 days. Get started here.