Standard for ERP as Cloud Computing

In the last years, Cloud computing for ERP systems provided solutions to the problems and difficulties encountered by conventional ERP systems. Many companies are evaluating the promised advantages and considering making use of cloud services. There are a lot of discussions about the role of standards in Cloud Computing. This research tries to investigate how beneficial it is to use standards for cloud computing to help organizations implementing ERP systems with less implementation cost and time. In this study we interviewed both ERP suppliers and buyers for their opinion about standard for ERP as a cloud computing. Interpretive research used to interpret what interviewees said and in what context to get a better understanding of the collected data. Most of the interviewed customers agreed about the benefits they may gain from such a standard and considered it theoretically and financially very feasible for them. Many ERP as service providers may not agree with an easy standardized interoperability mechanism, which will give total freedom to ERP on-demand clients to change providers easily. The proposed solution is to standardize the core functionalities of ERP as cloud service, where ERP as cloud service providers might provide basic standardized core functionalities, and can offer any distinction customized functionalities on the top of that core. This way, customers will have standardized interoperable solutions and providers will still have more option to compete with price and features