Just as businesses are evolving to meet today’s challenges, technology companies, including SAP, are also transforming product strategies to become a better fit for the next generation of organizations. That is happening with enterprise resource planning (ERP) as well.

In my conversations with Paul Saunders, head of Product Strategy for SAP S/4HANA, he says “ERP is like music.” Whether its baroque, rock and roll, or punk rock, music is structured upon the same core building blocks, yet this essential core structure has been the basis for innumerable musical genres and flavors throughout history.

In Saunders’ view, ERP is no different.

The core purpose of ERP has always been to help customers manage their business functions within a centralized and integrated system, yet ERP has undergone significant changes since the 1960s. It incorporated customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain, evolved toward cloud and artificial intelligence (AI), and fundamentally recharacterized itself as agile, nimble, collaborative, mobile-friendly, and data driven. Like music, says Saunders, “ERP exists to provide for the audience of the moment.”

For some customers, selecting the right ERP deployment option to suit their business needs is not quite as straightforward as choosing new vinyl at the record store. And for current on-premise ERP customers, some of which may not have run an upgrade in years, the prospect of change can feel overwhelming. SAP is ready to guide them through it and accompany them on the journey.