Enterprise architecture · Cloud and ERP programmes
EA for Cloud & ERP Transformation
ERP transformation architecture on the buyer’s side of the table: what moves and what retires, a target drawn by your side, the customisation line held, data treated as the main risk and day two owned by you. Every other party in the programme has something to sell. We hold no alliances, resell nothing and take no commission.
The service at a glance
Definition
What is ERP transformation architecture?
ERP transformation architecture is the enterprise architecture work done on the buyer’s side of a cloud migration or ERP replacement: deciding what moves, what retires and what stays, drawing the target, setting the customisation line, owning the integration and data decisions, and keeping day two in your hands rather than the integrator’s. It exists because every other party in the programme has something to sell.
Intelance provides it through services already priced on this site: a ten day architecture baseline from £18,000 + VAT before the business case, senior architects embedded through the programme from £45,000 + VAT, a senior data lead from £22,000 per month where the programme lives or dies on data, and independent delivery reviews from £8,500 + VAT. Every fee is agreed in writing before work starts.
The same rules govern cloud migration architecture: the platforms change, the conflicts of interest do not. Intelance holds no alliance with any vendor or integrator, so the advice on SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics and the hyperscalers has one customer. The wider practice is described under enterprise architecture consulting.
A baseline before the business case
The estate scored in ten working days, so the case starts from facts.
The target drawn by your side
And the customisation line set while you still hold selection leverage.
Designs challenged in the room
Integrator proposals tested before they become commitments you own.
Day two owned by you
Decisions, documentation and skills handed over as a deliverable.
The decisions
Six decisions that set the next decade
They are made in the first weeks of every cloud and ERP programme, whether or not anyone on your side makes them. Each card shows the default you inherit if nobody does.
Deciding what moves, retires or stays
Every system in the estate dispositioned: move, replace, retire or leave alone. The programme that skips this migrates the mess it meant to fix.
Decided by defaultEverything moves, because moving everything is what the integrator quoted for.A target architecture drawn by your side
The end state architecture drawn by people who answer to you, so the design serves the business rather than the delivery plan.
Decided by defaultThe target is whatever the integrator’s reference architecture happens to be.Standard or customised
The customisation line set deliberately: where the organisation adapts to the software, and where the software genuinely must bend.
Decided by defaultCustomisations accumulate one workshop at a time, and the upgrade path dies quietly.Integration and data ownership
Who owns each interface and each data object through the programme, decided before the first mapping workshop.
Decided by defaultIntegration becomes the gap between two statements of work.The run cost modelled honestly
Licences, hyperscaler consumption, support and the people you still need, modelled before the business case is signed.
Decided by defaultA business case built on the migration cost and silent on the running cost.Day two ownership
What you run when the integrator leaves: the decisions, the documentation and the skills, handed over as a deliverable rather than hoped for.
Decided by defaultA support contract with the same supplier, forever.How it works
Architecture on your side at every stage
Each stage is an existing Intelance service with a published fee. Take one, or take the sequence.
The baseline
The full estate scored in ten working days: what moves, what retires, what the data really looks like. The business case starts from facts rather than the vendor deck.
The target and the terms
The target drawn, the customisation line set and the architecture questions put into the integrator selection while you still have leverage.
Architects on your side
Senior architects inside the programme: designs challenged before they become commitments, the decision log kept, the line held.
The data lead
ERP cutovers live or die on data. Profiled early, mapped deliberately, rehearsed before anyone talks about go live.
The independent view
A delivery review when reports and reality drift apart, or independent proof of what you got once the dust settles.
Leverage dies at signature. The most valuable weeks are the ones before the integrator contract is signed, which is why the baseline and the selection work come first.
Published fees
The four services that carry a cloud or ERP programme
Each one stands alone with its own published fee. Together they cover a programme from business case to day two.
EA QuickScan
The full architecture baseline before the business case: every system scored, the data honestly assessed, and a costed roadmap the case can stand on.Best whenThe programme is still a plan and the case needs facts. FeeFrom £18,000 + VATTen working days 02
ProjectEA
Senior architects embedded through the programme: the target held, integrator designs challenged before they become commitments, the decision log kept from selection to cutover.Best whenThe programme is real and nobody at the table answers only to you. FeeFrom £45,000 + VATERP scale from £120,000 03
Project DG for ERP & AI
A senior data lead inside the programme: data profiled early, mapped deliberately and rehearsed before cutover, with quality gates the programme cannot talk its way past.Best whenThe cutover depends on data nobody has profiled. FeeFrom £22,000 / month 04Independent Technology Audit
A delivery review when reporting and reality drift apart, or independent proof of what was delivered once the programme closes.Best whenThe board wants evidence rather than reassurance. FeeFrom £8,500 + VATThe alternatives
Your options side by side
Three ways to staff the architecture of a cloud or ERP programme. The difference is who the architects answer to.
The vendor or integrator designs the target it will then build and bill
Their delivery margin and licence targets
A support contract with the same supplier, forever
Standard implementations with little at stake in the design
A transformation office from a big firm allied to the software vendor
You, and their alliance partner
A handover deck when the bench rolls off
Enterprises that want an army and accept the alliance
A small senior team on the buyer’s side, from £18,000 + VAT to baseline
You, and nobody else: no alliances, no commission
Decisions, documentation and skills handed over as a deliverable
Organisations that intend to own the next decade rather than rent it
Scope
What this includes and what it does not
You get
A dispositioned estate: move, replace, retire or keep, decided before the business case is signed.
A target and customisation line put into the integrator selection while you still have leverage.
Integrator designs challenged in the room, with a decision log the board can audit.
Data profiled, mapped and rehearsed before cutover, behind quality gates that hold.
A day two package: the decisions, documentation and skills handed to your team.
This is not
An implementation. We build nothing and bill no delivery days. The integrator builds. We protect.
A vendor recommendation service. No alliances, no licence resale, no commission from any platform or integrator.
A shadow programme office. A small senior team in the decisions that matter rather than an army in the meetings that do not.
A report. The work happens in selection rooms, design authorities and cutover rehearsals.
Where to start
Where clients usually start
Four situations we are usually called into. If none of them fit, book a call and we will point you at the right first step.
Why Intelance
The commitments we put in writing
One paymaster
Intelance holds no alliance with any vendor or integrator, resells no licences and takes no commission. The advice has one customer: you.
The baseline before the case
Architecture starts before the business case instead of after signature, because leverage dies the day the contract is signed.
Published fixed fees
Every stage is an existing service with its fee published on this site, from £18,000 + VAT, agreed in writing before work starts.
Data treated as the main risk
Most ERP failures trace to the data layer, so the data lead is a senior role inside the programme rather than a workstream on a slide.
Day two is a deliverable
The handover of decisions, documentation and skills is scoped, scheduled and tested rather than left to the final steering pack.
Who you will work with
Every engagement is led by a senior partner. Nothing is offshored and nothing is handed to a junior bench.
Case studies
All case studiesReady to talk?
Tell us where the programme stands
Thirty minutes with a senior architect on where things are: business case forming, contract on the table or delivery underway. If signature is close, say so. The target and terms work is designed to land while you still have leverage.
FAQs
Questions about EA for cloud and ERP
What is ERP transformation architecture?
The enterprise architecture work done on the buyer’s side of a cloud migration or ERP replacement: dispositioning the estate, drawing the target, setting the customisation line, owning integration and data decisions, and securing day two ownership. It is distinct from the integrator’s solution architecture, which answers to the delivery plan rather than to you.
How much does ERP transformation architecture cost?
With Intelance it is priced through the services that carry it: the architecture baseline from £18,000 + VAT in ten working days, embedded architects from £45,000 + VAT per programme with ERP scale programmes from £120,000, a senior data lead from £22,000 per month, and independent delivery reviews from £8,500 + VAT. Every fee is published and agreed in writing before work starts.
Why not let the integrator architect the target?
Because the firm drawing the target also owns the margin on building it. That does not make integrators dishonest. It makes the default design the one that is easiest and most profitable to deliver. The six decisions on this page each have a default that favours the seller, and the only fix is architecture that answers to the buyer.
When should architecture start on a cloud migration or ERP programme?
Before the business case. Enterprise architecture on a cloud migration earns most of its value in the weeks before signature: the baseline tells you what should move at all, and the target and customisation line go into the selection while the integrator still has to compete for the work. Leverage dies at signature.
What is the customisation line?
The deliberate boundary between where your organisation adapts to the standard software and where the software genuinely must bend to the business. Programmes that never set it accumulate customisations one workshop at a time, and pay for them at every upgrade for a decade. Setting it is a business decision that architecture puts in front of the right people early.
Why do so many ERP programmes fail?
Gartner has predicted that more than seventy percent of recent ERP implementations will fail to fully meet their original business case. In our experience the causes sit outside the software: estates that were never dispositioned, targets drawn by the seller, customisation lines that drift, unowned integration, run costs missing from the case, and data nobody profiled until migration weekend.
Are you tied to SAP, Oracle or Microsoft?
No. Intelance holds no alliance with any vendor or integrator, resells nothing and takes no commission, which is rare in this market. The work is platform neutral across SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics and the major hyperscalers: the six decisions are the same whichever logo is on the licence.
Do you implement the ERP or run the migration?
No. We build nothing and bill no delivery days, which is what keeps the advice clean. The integrator builds and migrates. Our job is that what they build is what you chose, and that you own it when they leave.
The programme is already in trouble. Can you still help?
Yes. An independent delivery review from £8,500 + VAT establishes where the programme stands, and embedded architects can then hold the line through recovery. If the data is the problem, which it usually is, Project DG puts a senior data lead inside the programme from £22,000 per month.