January 14, 2025 | 3 mins read
In today’s fast-paced business landscape, organizations are constantly looking to streamline operations and improve efficiency. A common step in this journey is migrating multiple legacy ERP systems into a modern, unified ERP platform. However, as anyone who has tackled such a project knows, the road to ERP consolidation is fraught with challenges: siloed data, inconsistent formats, duplicate records, and poor data quality can derail even the best-laid plans.
At CluedIn, we understand these pain points, and we’ve built a solution that makes ERP migration not only feasible but also seamless and efficient. Let's walk through why CluedIn is the perfect Master Data Management (MDM) system for organizations embarking on ERP consolidation.
The Challenges of ERP Migration
Migrating multiple ERP systems into a single platform requires consolidating and cleansing vast amounts of data spread across various silos. Challenges include:
- Data Silos: Each legacy ERP system stores data in its own structure, making integration complex.
- Inconsistent Standards: Different systems often use varying formats, schemas, and taxonomies for the same data.
- Duplicate Data: A single customer or supplier might exist in multiple systems with slight variations in name or address.
- Poor Data Quality: Inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated records can propagate into the new system, undermining its value.
Without a robust data management foundation, these issues can delay migrations, increase costs, and erode confidence in the new ERP system.
How CluedIn Solves These Challenges
CluedIn is purpose-built to address the exact challenges that ERP migrations entail, enabling organizations to:
- Break Down Data Silos: CluedIn connects to all your existing ERP systems, regardless of format or vendor. With prebuilt connectors and flexible integration options, it automatically ingests data from multiple sources, creating a single source of truth.
- Automate Data Unification: Our platform uses advanced algorithms and AI-driven processes to unify data across systems. Whether it’s resolving entity duplicates or aligning schemas, CluedIn makes sure your data is clean, standardized, and ready for migration.
- Ensure High Data Quality: Data quality is foundational to ERP success. CluedIn’s automated data quality checks and rule-based governance framework identify and resolve issues before they reach the new ERP system. By continuously monitoring data, we ensure your new ERP operates with trusted and reliable information.
Maintain Context and Lineage ERP migrations often result in lost data context. CluedIn ensures that lineage and metadata are preserved, providing complete visibility into where data originated and how it has been transformed. This is critical for regulatory compliance and operational decision-making. - Accelerate the Migration Process: Traditional ERP migrations can take years, but CluedIn significantly reduces timelines. By automating key processes like data cleansing, mapping, and enrichment, CluedIn enables faster, smoother migrations with minimal manual intervention.
Real-World Success Stories
Organizations across industries have leveraged CluedIn to migrate their ERP systems successfully - from manufacturing giants integrating SAP and Oracle systems, to retailers unifying inventory and customer data across platforms.
For instance, a global manufacturer recently used CluedIn to consolidate data from six different ERPs into a single Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform. What could have been a multi-year ordeal was completed in months, with data quality and consistency that exceeded expectations.
More Than Migration: Building a Strong Data Foundation
ERP migration is just the beginning. With CluedIn, organizations gain a robust data management foundation that supports ongoing innovation. Whether it’s integrating with analytics platforms, enabling real-time insights, or scaling operations, CluedIn ensures your data is always ready to power your business goals.
How CluedIn saves money during this process?
I am sure we have all run projects where part of the implementation feels wrong or inefficient. This can typically be a sign that the technology being used is either not hitting the mark or there are other technologies that can be used to accelerate. The bottom line is that the process of consolidation of data (not just for ERP migrations) is by default the act of taking inputs in all types of formats (some of them still moving targets) and somehow wrangling it into a conslidated representation, or representations, and then project them into the new ERP model. In our experience, classic data pipelines such as ETL pipelines are the go-to standard for this, but after implementing and successfully completing many ERP migrations, it is often not the fit-for-purpose solution you might think it is.
The main reason for this, is that the idea that all data sources will fit into a predefined target model has proven time after time to be enticing, but dramatically impossible to achieve. Think of CluedIn as that "cushion" where data can land, and we are not going to impose very hard restrictions of expectations on the data itself. Rather, we can take little bits at a time in a flexible environment, in an effort to often project this data into a rigid environment (i.e. we have never met an ERP system that doesn't force you to be rigid in structure).
Acceleration through technology
We all know the anecdotes, and sometimes they are relevant and other times they are not. It doesn't always feel like "throwing more tech" at the problem will fix anything. At CluedIn, we would contest, backed by the success with our customers, that by definition, trying to migrate many ERP systems into a new target one needs the "right" technology, not more technology. To use an analogy, we don't think that a square peg, fits into a round hole - no matter the technology. Hence, our stance is that ERP migration + flexible MDM = time saved in migration.