Imagine a grayish interface with those ever-so-boring texts telling you your leave has been sent or an action has been successfully executed. Then you try to go to different columns of that application to try to check where the transaction record might be. Then after a flurry of mouse clicks, you try to print it out for hard copy submission. Every time you operate the software, it seems like a dreaded chore that you simply would have used disconnected Excel spreadsheets to carry out your tasks instead of this “flashy” Enterprise Resource Planning tool your company tries to get everyone to use to “increase productivity and efficiency.”

Such is the real-world case of how ERP software are still to-date, that, IFS coined the acronym ERP as “Excel Runs Production” (2017). In their study ‘Digital Transformation Requires Good Software Usability’, a massive 88% of enterprise software users would gladly abandon their current ERP software for good-ol’ spreadsheets, hence the term. Moreover, the introduction of a myriad of technologies ranging from cloud computing, IoT, artificial intelligence, big data add to the weight of assumed digital transformation, all while forgetting the issue of poor software usability. Eventually, it still boils down to the user experience of the ERP software that all these backend technologies can really be a real game-changer towards digital transformation. ERP at its current stage, is a mere set of very large records waiting to be tapped into.

That is, without ease of use, transparency, and trust; to turn data into outcomes or suggested actions; there is simply no way for the efficiency and productivity that executives can hope to achieve through digital transformation to come into fruition.

Shifting towards intelligent Enterprise Resource Planning (iERP) to realize the potential of an integrated system for digital transformation

Essentially, the cornerstones of iERP are Internet of Things (IoT), Cognitive Learning, Blockchain, and User Experience. The interactions of these components in an end-to-end system allows for the harnessing of scalability and efficiency factors in the lines of businesses. Just imagine a simple and intuitive client interface that you input your actions into without a huge learning curve of having to decipher how to use it. These data gets processed in a safe and trusted data set that is immutable, fast, secure, and completely transparent. Next actions are then “learned” and provided through cognitive learning. In other words, an intuitive input into a magical blackbox that provides a trusted output without having to worry about the security and validity of the transactions in between.

A great user experience (towards human users or hardware interfaces) allows for the capturing or data as close to its source as possible. This is the core of even wanting to make use of ERP systems to optimize business processes. All these are only possible with the advent of blockchain technologies. To be exact, a fast, efficient, and completely truthful blockchain.

This is especially so in the context of the business world, where truth is subjective. Truth for a company is dependent on the set of records that each company or department individually maintained. And how can we justify the truthfulness of the truth that each party is putting forth in the event of a dispute. Hence, only when all functions of a business(es) are hyperconnected into a unified ledger that each party maintains separately but always in sync, can it be possible to really trust the machines to generate meaningful and useful outcomes that people can trust. By maintaining a secure, fast, immutable, and scalable blockchain, businesses can really tap into the real power of ERP systems without any compromise.

Conclusion

Blockchain is way more than cryptocurrency. The real value of blockchain is to serve as the intermediary of communication where humans can apply any machine/man output in their field of expertise without questions. Blockchain imbues authenticity into the transaction such that trust can be disregarded in the first place. A case in point is DEXON, which is capable of industrial-grade speed, while maintaining a strong basis of decentralization, security, and scalability built right from the start.

In retrospect, blockchain serves as the bond and bootstrap for IoT, AI, and UX, which fundamentally transforms the way ERP systems are being used now and in the future. No longer do you have to fumble with different applications, you might just be able to command a voice assistant to book your leave in the not-too-distant-future.