Let us explore an interesting and
challenging topic “How to Test ERP Software”. We’ll learn the
challenges involved in ERP testing (e.g SAP Testing), guidelines and road-map
for a successful ERP testing.
Before going into more details about ERP
testing, first, we need to understand some key information about ERP. For
testing purpose, understanding the features, functionalities, and workflow of
ERP software is most important. Without proper knowledge, testing ERP modules is
very critical and cumbersome.
It is called as 4M’s
in any type of organization like Man, Machine, Method, and Materials.
Every ERP Software in the globe is built based
on this concept in mind. Every company needs an Accounting or ERP solution
which is a fact of any business.
An organization may use one or many software
as per the requirements of the individual departments. For example, the Accounts department may use accounting
software developed in Oracle technologies, finance department may use budgeting
software developed in Microsoft technologies, personnel department may use
payroll software developed in Java and inventory department may use warehousing
software developed by IBM and so on.
Apart from the technologies, each software is
different. The database used for storing the data is also different from
Oracle, SQL Server, DB/2 etc.
Most importantly, the data available in one
department is not available for the other department, as the data is not stored
in a centralized location. This situation arises many complexities in a
business scenario of an enterprise organization and reduces the productivity of
the company as well as impact the efficiency of the employees.
For instance, the sales manager doesn’t know
the inventory stock in the warehouse for committing the sales order with a
customer and the Vice President of the company doesn’t know the financial
status of the company until unless visiting the department or have a phone call
with them.
ERP Software considers all these various
business situations and functional flow scenarios and giving the solution
to the enterprise customers by integrating the multiple department’s
workflows inside the organization and centralizing the database through a
server infrastructure.
So, every department’s data will be stored in
a centralized server on a daily basis. And, any authorized employee can be able
to see the live data online without the need to interact
with anyone to proceed with their daily operations. Finally, the VP of the
company can review the complete organization data with a single mouse click.
Great work, right?
The worldwide ERP software market per year is
more than $25Billion which grows 10-20% every year and
the demand will be increased in small and medium enterprise business segments
through SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and Cloud (Off-Premises Infrastructure)
platforms.
Subsequently, the demand for ERP testing professionals
is also increasing in the IT industry. Many ERP implementation projects spent
more than 50% of their budget in testing and related activities.
Even though we call it as ERP Software, it is
not “just software” and the ERP vendor’s job is not
completed by selling ERP software to the customer. ERP is actually a “business solution”
to an organization by automating the business process and workflow inside
the company. This will not be achieved by just installing the software and set
up the infrastructure, rather the success of ERP implementation requires a lot
of dedicated workaround and people involvement.
In this ERP world, how to select and evaluate
the best ERP software, which is having the quality and performance as expected
is a big question and dilemma amongst the enterprise customers.
Black Book Market Research
As provider executives face
compounding value-based risk decisions, recent interest in ERP has climbed
sharply according to a recent Black Book survey of 1,158 health system
procurement and technology leaders in the fourth quarter of 2016.
More than a third (35 percent) of
those organizations with implemented ERP systems reported having to defer
maintenance and/or delayed upgrades over the past three years leaving many
hospital ERPs nearly obsolete.
"Crucial back-end software that
manages finance, supply chain and inventory management, purchasing, payroll and
coding have been disregarded into a confused entanglement of different products
that don't communicate and left executives with the inability to realize cost
savings in preparation of value based care," said Doug Brown,
Managing Partner of Black Book. "There has been user opposition to
deploying a new or upgraded ERP, perceived as carrying a high price tag in a
time when clinical deployments overwhelmed hospital staff and budgets."
57 percent of the C-suite executives
surveyed admitted not having a deep understanding of the impact or complexity
of their supply chain until the reality of value-based care set in this year
with the emphasis on accountability to properly measure and compare medical
costs with outcomes.
"In a payment environment that
reimburses for value, it has become more critical to understand exactly how
much it costs to deliver patient care," said Brown. "Clumsy costing
based on uncoordinated data will become perilous for hospitals at risk."
Supplies accounted for 30.5 percent
of the average hospital's annual operating budget in 2016 as reported by survey
respondents.
Finding new methods of understanding
true costs per case and per episode of care have providers returning to ERP
system basics to move confidently to a valued based model.
69 percent of IT leaders polled claim
they will prioritize their supply chains in 2017 as among the most valuable
asset for actionable data mining before overburdening their organizations with
population health and sophisticated analytics tools.
ERP vendor market share was limited
to only a handful of vendors prior to 2013, but the dramatic demand for cloud
ERP and the amount of hospitals not using an ERP system has produced a spurt of
new ERP vendors as older systems retool products or edge closer to
obsolescence.
"As the industry emphases the
identification and capture of all costs to determine the actual cost of care,
the implementation of newer ERP technologies and advanced costing methods has
changed administrator's strategic technology plans," said Brown.
"Patients cannot receive high quality care without proper cohesion of
supply chain, human resources, finance and operational systems with clinical
data as it all comes down to outcomes."
Cloud ERP solutions produced the
highest client experience scores for healthcare organizations including speed
in implementations and scalable total costs according to Black Book results.
"92 percent of survey respondents
recognize that the ERP of healthcare future is mobile and it's in the cloud
with secure networking and analytics built in," said Brown. "The idea
is that you have general ledger, accounts payable, budgeting, forecasting and
cash management all accessible anywhere, whether in the operating room,
purchasing, or in administration."
The Top Healthcare ERP rated vendors
for 2017 are in order of client experience and product satisfaction scoring are:
- Oracle/Oracle ERP Cloud
- Cerner/Siemens ERP
- Workday
- Microsoft Dynamics
- McKesson
- SAP
- IBM Watson
- Infor/Infor Cloud Suite
86 percent of materials management
leaders outsourced supply chain functions to medical and surgical supply
distributors. 93 percent also state they do not suffer from any significant
supply chain problems such as product delivery issues.
93 percent of materials managers
state their organizations suffer from poor inventory control technology and
processes that typically end up with overstocking, high supply and labor costs
and frustrated nursing staff.
According to the 2016 Black Book
technology satisfaction survey of nurses, clinical staff spends an average of
34 percent of their time on supply related tasks such as locating products.
72 percent of current ERP users state
that their ERP modules in place are too difficult to use. 15 percent believe
their current ERP product will be obsolete by 2019.
84 percent of respondents report they
currently cannot segment patients based on spending, complexity or resources to
adequately price for 2017 value-based initiatives.
88 percent of CFOs responding with
2017 ERP replacements or purchase goals see cloud solutions as the preferred
product for their organization.
About
Black Book
Black Book™, its founders, management
and staff do not own or hold any financial interest in any of the ERP vendors
covered and encompassed in the surveys it conducts. Black Book reports the
results of the collected satisfaction and client experience rankings in
publication and to media prior to vendor notification of rating results and
does not solicit vendor participation fees, review fees, inclusion or briefing
charges, consultation requirements, and/or vendor collaboration as Black Book
polls vendors' clients.
Since 2000, Black Book™ has polled
the vendor satisfaction across over thirty industries in the
software/technology and managed services sectors around the globe including
ERP. In 2009, Black Book began polling the client experience of now over 540,000
healthcare software and services users. Black Book expanded its survey prowess
and reputation of independent, unbiased crowd-sourced surveying to IT and
health records professionals, physician practice administrators, nurses,
financial leaders, executives and hospital information technology managers.
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