Switching enterprise software systems can be a massive undertaking. A company with thousands of employees is likely to have thousands of machines to update, with dozens or hundreds of different hardware configurations. An enterprise IT department would have to coordinate these upgrades with simultaneous upgrades to company servers, which would not only update the systems but also would likely need to manage company-wide access permissions and role authorities.

Attempting technology transitions at the enterprise scale is so daunting a challenge that it's rarely initiated without a very clear understanding of the costs and benefits involved. The upside to a shift from on-premises to cloud ERP systems, however, can be so compelling that it often becomes a question of when to make the change, rather than why.Oracle CEO Mark Hurd is one of the industry's leading proponents of cloud-based systems. He's spoken frequently on the high costs of maintaining on-premises ERP systems and other mission-critical systems, and has offered compelling data in support of his arguments.