I often get asked the question “what is really being done differently by delivering supply chain management software through the cloud versus deploying it behind the firewall?” It’s a fair and important question. I’ll give my thoughts here in terms of two of the more important dimensions of supply chain management improvement programs:
How fast do I get value?
How can I sustain and increase value over time?
It is along these two dimensions that cloud represents a step improvement from previous generation deployment approaches. It provides the means by which to achieve value faster and, even more important, it provides the means by which to continuously increase value over time.