How to choose a cloud ERP for your business in Egypt or the GCC
Seven practical criteria for choosing an ERP, from Arabic support and e-invoicing to total cost of ownership and ease of data migration.
AL TONY Engineering Team — Published — Updated — 1 min read
The short answer
Choose the system that covers your core operations today, supports local compliance (such as e-invoicing), lets you export all your data, and has a clear three-year cost of ownership — not the one with the longest feature list.
Seven selection criteria
- Genuine Arabic support: right-to-left interfaces, Arabic reports and invoices, not partial translation.
- Local compliance: integration with Egypt's e-invoicing system, or ZATCA requirements in Saudi Arabia.
- Multi-branch and multi-currency: if you operate in more than one city or country.
- Data migration: who does it, and how are opening balances reconciled?
- Integration: are there documented APIs for your online store, bank and other systems?
- Data ownership: can you export all your data at any time?
- Total cost of ownership: subscription + migration + training + customisation, over three years.
Common mistakes
- Buying a huge system the team only uses 20% of.
- Skipping training, so staff drift back to spreadsheets.
- A big-bang launch instead of a phased, module-by-module rollout.
Next step
List your five most important daily operations and ask each vendor to demonstrate them on data close to your own.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a cloud ERP rollout take?
For SMBs, typically 3–8 weeks depending on the number of modules and the volume of migrated data.
Author
AL TONY Engineering Team
Software & cloud platform engineering
The team that designs, builds and operates AL TONY's cloud platforms and client projects. We write about what we apply in our day-to-day work.
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