In order to succeed in today's economy, surrounded by increasing competition, manufacturers must be ready to make use of all technologies available to them. This includes finding ways to efficiently use large amounts of data and leveraging this business intelligence to become more agile.

Cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions offer organizations the ability to access data and resources, in real time and on demand. Cloud ERP also helps reduce costs, is scalable and is ideal for storing and managing data.

According to Gartner, SaaS-based manufacturing and distribution software adoption will rise from 22 percent in 2013 to 45 percent by 2023. The outstanding growth will be due in a large part to the adoption of two-tier cloud ERP systems. Two-tier systems offer a hybrid approach for companies that wish to combine the stability of on-premise ERP with the agility of cloud-based solutions.

Two-tier approaches are especially attractive to organizations that have invested large amounts of resources into the establishment of a strong on-premise ERP systems. While these businesses want to modernize and keep up with the changes in the manufacturing industry, they are also forced to consider the amount of time and capital that went into developing a highly customized on-premise solution.

According to Gartner, while such manufacturers are moving in the right direction with the hybrid approach, by 2017 the two-tier solution will reach a its peak of effectiveness regarding improvement of cost-benefit outcomes. Companies will have to address this as they adopt cloud ERP solutions.

Carol Hardcastle, research vice president at Gartner stated, "Most organizations still fail to recognize and plan for the total lifetime costs of their ERP solutions, whether on-premises, cloud or hybrid. Such an approach actually leads to increased total costs once the additional costs for connecting the solutions together are taken into account."

To learn more about cloud-based ERP and other business management software, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, contact Accent Software today.