ERP Strategy and Planning

ERP Strategy and Planning provides the foundation for aligning Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems with an organization’s business goals and operational needs. It encompasses assessing existing processes, defining requirements, selecting suitable solutions, and developing a roadmap for implementation and ongoing improvement. Effective planning addresses data migration, system integration, governance, and change management, helping organizations manage costs, reduce risk, and prepare employees for new ways of working. By establishing clear priorities and measurable outcomes, businesses can coordinate ERP investments across finance, supply chain, human resources, and other core functions. A well-defined ERP strategy extends beyond technology selection; it guides decisions about process design, deployment models, and future scalability. This approach helps organizations build a flexible foundation for growth, improve operational performance, and maximize the long-term value of their ERP systems.

Supply Chain Management

IFS Is Building the Operations Layer Around Industrial AI

IFS’s Softeon acquisition is only one part of a broader push to connect warehouse execution, logistics optimization, MRO, asset management, and ERP around Industrial AI.

Manufacturing Systems and Automation

Why Food ERP Still Needs More Than Generic Dynamics 365

Aptean’s food and beverage ERP footprint on Microsoft Dynamics 365 shows why food, beverage, fresh, and agribusiness companies still need vertical ERP logic for traceability, quality, production, pricing, and compliance.

Analytics and AI

GenAI in ERP Needs a Smaller Starting Point and a Harder Business Proposition

Enterprise leaders, while ambitious in their generative AI strategies, face a significant gap between their AI aspirations and actual production adoption, as illustrated by Mukesh Kumar's insights on targeted automation in ERP systems addressing specific, high-impact problems.

Top ERP Today stories and H1 2026 enterprise technology trends across AI, cloud, SAP, robotics, and infrastructure

ERP Strategy and Planning

10 Stories That Defined Enterprise Tech in H1 2026 and What They Say About the ERP Market

ERP Today’s most-read stories in the first half of 2026 reveal a market moving from AI enthusiasm into harder questions about pricing, governance, infrastructure, cloud costs, and operational execution.

Secure enterprise corridor representing Microsoft Power Platform governance and AI agent access

Governance, Risk, and Compliance

Microsoft Power Platform Narrows the Access Gap for ERP Agents

Microsoft's June 2026 Power Platform updates introduce Advanced Connector Policies that govern AI agent access to SAP systems at the action and MCP server level. ERP leaders must understand what the new controls mean for low-code automation, connector visibility, and enterprise AI compliance.

Application Development and Integration

Can AI Break the ERP Change-Order Cycle? Tessera Labs Just Raised $60M to Try

Tessera Labs’ $60 million funding round puts a spotlight on AI-native ERP modernization, raising a new question for CIOs: how much of the migration, data, code, and documentation work that once required large consulting teams can now be automated without weakening governance?

ERP Strategy and Planning

IHH Healthcare System Standardization Shows the Hard Part of a Multi-Country ERP Transformation

IHH Healthcare has selected Infosys for a multi-year, enterprise-wide ERP transformation using the Infosys Topaz AI-first platform to standardize business processes across Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, covering finance, procurement, supply chain, HCM, and enterprise performance management.

Cloud Platform and Technology

Ontario Health Centre Shows Why Nonprofits Are Outgrowing Legacy ERP

An Ontario Community Health Centre migrated from Sage 300 to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with Dynamics Square Canada, automating vendor invoice capture and employee expense management to free a lean two-person finance team from manual workarounds and improve financial visibility across locations.

Human Capital Management

Oracle Takes On the Federal Government’s HR Patchwork

The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has awarded Oracle a $395.8 million Federal HRIT Modernization contract to deliver the federal government's first government-wide HR platform using Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, designed to replace more than 100 separate agency systems and consolidate workforce management for 2 million civilian employees.

Enterprise Architecture

Who Governs AI Agents When Workflows Cross Platforms?

As AI agents expand across ERP, cloud, and workflow platforms, enterprise leaders face a critical governance challenge: who owns accountability when data, models, and audit trails are fragmented across multiple systems. This analysis explores the control plane problem and what ERP teams must do to prevent agent sprawl.

Cloud Platform and Technology

Can Headless ERP Change the Migration Math?

Headless ERP is emerging as a third option for organizations facing SAP ECC end-of-life deadlines: rather than migrating the core or abandoning it, enterprises can layer an AI-driven agentic interface over APIs while keeping the legacy system running. This analysis examines the architecture, risks, and real-world implications for CIOs weighing the headless ERP migration equation.

Service Management

Intapp Says Professional Firms Solved the Wrong AI Problem

Intapp’s Firm AI blueprint reframes the professional-services AI debate around the business of the firm, arguing that individual productivity tools will not change firm economics unless AI reaches intake, conflicts, staffing, pricing, relationships, compliance, and institutional judgment.

Analytics and AI

SAP’s AI Partnership Sprint Shows What Its Autonomous Enterprise Still Has to Prove

SAP’s recent partnerships with Google Cloud, n8n, Anthropic, AWS, Cohere, Mistral, and Parloa show how the company is turning its Autonomous Enterprise strategy into a modular AI architecture built around data access, orchestration, model choice, and governed business context.

Manufacturing Systems and Automation

Sage X3 Hopes to Help Manufacturers See Trouble Before It Hits

Sage announced enhancements to Sage X3, aimed at helping manufacturers and distributors improve operational visibility, reduce manual tasks, and expedite decision-making through embedded AI and operational intelligence.

Manufacturing Systems and Automation

Why Manufacturing AI Succeeds or Fails at the ERP Layer

Manufacturers' ambitions for AI are hampered by the lack of a coherent operational context within their ERP systems, as successful AI implementation requires reliable data governance and structured decision-making that connects insights to actionable outcomes.

Real-time ERP data pipeline for enterprise AI agents - data lakehouse architecture

Data and Data Management

Why ERP Leaders Need to Understand Data Lakehouses Before Scaling AI Agents

Data lakehouses are emerging as the essential infrastructure layer for enterprise AI — providing ERP leaders with a governed, cross-system data foundation where AI agents can operate safely, semantically, and at scale. This analysis explains what a data lakehouse is, why it matters for agentic AI, and what ERP leaders must address before scaling autonomous AI across critical business workflows.

Analytics and AI

EY’s Own ERP Migration Raises the Bar for Transformation Partners

EY's transition to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition on Microsoft Azure positions the firm as a credible transformation partner — one that has lived the operational, data, and change-management challenges it now advises on. This analysis explores what EY's internal migration means for ERP buyers evaluating systems integrators for their own RISE with SAP journeys.

Security

NTT DATA and Pathlock Bring Always-On Cyber Defense to SAP Workflows

NTT DATA Business Solutions and Pathlock have joined forces to deliver always-on SAP cybersecurity — combining a managed SOC with AI-native application controls to protect finance, procurement, and supply chain workflows against unauthorized access, fraud, and misconfiguration at global scale.

Manufacturing Systems and Automation

QAD Redzone’s Pune Hub Points to the Real AI Gap in Manufacturing

QAD Redzone’s Pune hub is more than an India engineering expansion. It reflects a larger shift toward AI-enabled manufacturing execution, where ERP, MES, connected worker tools, and frontline decision-making need to operate as one control loop.

Analytics and AI

SAP Says AI Could Replace Its Coders—Customers Should Watch What Comes Next

Christian Klein’s claim that SAP could have no human software developers within three to four years is not just a workforce prediction. It is a signal of how SAP believes enterprise software will be built, governed, supported, and sold in the AI era.

ERP Strategy and Planning

Airbus Shows Why Aerospace ERP Innovation Starts with Data Integration

Aerospace ERP innovation hinges not only on advanced aircraft concepts but significantly on the integration and efficiency of enterprise systems like SAP, as demonstrated by Airbus, highlighting the crucial role of real-time data across engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain operations.

Product Lifecycle Management

NTT DATA Puts AI Agents at the Front End of Product Planning

NTT DATA is launching an AI agent service in July 2026 to streamline early-stage product planning for food, beverage, and consumer goods companies, enhancing the speed and structure of concept generation while ensuring alignment with brand guidelines and market analysis.

Tax Compliance

Does Your ERP Know What Tax Regime You’re In? A Compliance Readiness FAQ for Enterprise Finance Leaders

Tax compliance has evolved into a critical board-level consideration for ERP systems, emphasizing the need for real-time reporting, continuous transaction controls, and adaptable architectures while leveraging AI to address compliance challenges across jurisdictions.

ERP Strategy and Planning

Acumatica’s Ratings Sweep: What Midmarket ERP Buyers Are Actually Rewarding

Acumatica has been recognized in seven industry reports for its exceptional usability, customer satisfaction, and product fit for small- and medium-sized businesses, notably achieving top rankings in Nucleus Research, G2, and TrustRadius, emphasizing the growing demand for ERP systems that combine modernity with user-friendliness.

Manufacturing Systems and Automation

Aluminium Industries Scales 250% with Syspro ERP

Aluminium Industries successfully utilized Syspro ERP to achieve 250% business growth without increasing administrative staff, effectively managing rising order volumes and production complexities across multiple divisions.

Human Capital Management

Singapore’s AI Hiring Surge Shows How Vendors Are Building for APAC Enterprise Demand

As of mid-June 2026, thirty of the world's leading AI firms, including OpenAI with 37 open positions, are ramping up hiring in Singapore, driven by government support and a focus on commercial deployment in Asia-Pacific, amidst a talent gap that sees only 1.4 qualified candidates per 10 open roles in Southeast Asia.

Automation

Syspro Helps Arjo Achieve Substantial Working Capital Savings

Arjo significantly improved its inventory management by implementing SYSPRO's automated stock replenishment, achieving a 95% reduction in manhours and projected savings of $100,000–$250,000 in working capital within 3–6 months.

Manufacturing Systems and Automation

Syspro’s Nucleus Leader Ranking Puts Manufacturing ERP Back in Focus

Syspro’s move into the Leader quadrant of the 2026 Nucleus Research SMB ERP Technology Value Matrix signals a broader shift in midmarket ERP buying, where manufacturing depth, usability, embedded automation, and deployment flexibility are becoming central to value.

Analytics and AI

Where Does AI Adoption Really Start? SAP Discovery Center Has the Answer

The SAP Discovery Center serves as a crucial self-service portal for enterprises like Agilent and Sutherland, providing essential resources and reusable architectures to streamline AI adoption and minimize risks, ultimately helping organizations select strategic starting points for their AI initiatives.

Enterprise Architecture

Epic Turns Scheduling into the First Test of Its Healthcare ERP Ambition

Epic's healthcare-native ERP initiative takes a significant step forward with the launch of Teamwork, a staff scheduling application that integrates seamlessly with clinical workflows, aiming to enhance operational efficiency and decision-making in health systems.