Most of the tech savvy industrialists have one thing in common. They want to adopt cloud based technologies across their enterprises.

The objective is to make themselves customer friendly from the distribution and services points of view.  

The most effective way to achieve this objective at the moment is to evaluate cloud based manufacturing applications including Enterprise Resource Planning.

According to a survey, SaaS (Software as a Service) based applications are making strong inroads as one of the key software installed by the manufacturing sector.

This is to be expected because a SaaS solution has the following characteristics.

• Allows customers a measure of control over upgrades
• Consistent outreach to innovative global operations

Let us analyze this subject further.

In the present scenario, enterprises are under pressure to increase efficiencies, accuracy, and make fast processes a competitive advantage. While on-premise systems deliver satisfactory outcomes, cloud based systems seem to do it better.

Cloud computing in any case has proved to be immensely beneficial because enterprises can rent processing resources instead of buying and maintaining them in-house.

New technologies such as ubiquitous internet availability, low cost of mobiles, greatly enhanced computing power and large storage availability are bringing in disruptive innovations. With cloud, high functioning applications can be remotely run on someone else’s hardware in a secure manner. 

Here are some of the cloud adoption strategies of the tech savvy manufacturing sector.

Designing services with innovative methods is fast becoming the “in thing” in industry today.

Companies are adding services such as integration on iPhone and implementation of voice activated control for emergency assistance in luxury cars. In simple terms, adding embedded services is providing a competitive edge to companies in these days of price wars.

Given the vital role Information Technology plays in the present business environment, it is not surprising cloud computing is making progress in the way companies operate.

As to be expected, smartphone and tablets are making huge impact in the business world. These devices are allowing anytime-anywhere access to employees so that they need not be tied down to desk tops in their offices.

Manufacturing ERP is a glaring example of cloud application by industries.

With cloud ERP, companies are reaping the following benefits.

• It is offering a range of deployment options such as SaaS. Companies can switch from on-premise to cloud as the need arises.
• They have a choice of licensing models or perpetual license. With cloud there is no need to pay upfront costs for application software licensing, and all computing infrastructure such as hardware and servers.
• It offers data access and the choice to move it anytime
• Companies draw computing power and storage size almost instantly as and when the business requires it.
• Greatly reduced cost of maintaining and upgrading the applications because the cloud vendor does these jobs.

Cloud applications are continuing to be key growth drivers for small and medium businesses (SMBs).

In fact by using SaaS solutions, manufacturing companies are getting opportunities to increase revenue.

One of the CEOs of a manufacturing firm has this to say, “We are finding cloud applications the basic foundation for our fast growing business. Cloud applications are keeping our business running even during disaster by maintaining business continuity and by providing disaster recovery options”.

The CEO is exactly on target. The advantages mentioned above far exceed those provided by traditional IT.

It is a good sign that SMBs increasingly prefer cloud. Today cloud is often the first choice when manufacturers consider making new decisions for replacing outdated IT solutions.

The flexibility and speed of deployment has made manufacturing businesses particularly compatible to cloud based solutions. As more companies embrace cloud ERP, we will witness many more innovative ways by which companies are taking advantage of scalability and cost reductions.

One underlying feature of cloud is that it allows manufacturers to assimilate business processes with ERP systems effortlessly. This improves productivity because:

• Information/ data can be entered faster
• The business receives more accurate data in real time enabling managers to take quick decisions.

To summarize, cloud adoption has the potential to integrate internal and external management information, assimilate financial data and manufacturing processes and assist in customer relationship management.

Cloud is one of the emerging technologies that have made a great impact on manufacturing businesses.