Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms like NetSuite and Salesforce were built to centralize operations. But today, centralization isn’t enough. The real value of ERP data lies in making it fully accessible, integrated, and actionable across your entire business.
Legacy ERP systems used to be great for bringing control and standardization. But today, they’re holding businesses back — with siloed data, slow insights, limited scalability, and disconnected operations. In a world where speed, agility, and full visibility are essential, these old systems have become more of a burden than a benefit.
That's where Snowflake changes the game.
Snowflake’s cloud-native Data Cloud unlocks ERP data from its silos and transforms it into a powerful engine for innovation and intelligent decision-making. Here’s how:
- Modern Architecture for Agility
Ingests structured and semi-structured ERP data, scales elastically, and removes infrastructure friction.
- Unmatched Scalability
Separates compute and storage so you can scale ERP workloads independently, on demand.
- Frictionless Data Collaboration
Unify ERP with CRM, IoT, finance, and supply chain data—creating a single source of truth.
- Enterprise-Grade Security
Keep data secure with built-in encryption, access control, and compliance by design.
- Faster Insights, Smarter Decisions
Run real-time analytics and power AI/ML models—no more waiting for batch jobs.
Recognizing the strengths of ERP systems and Snowflake is key to laying the groundwork for effective data integration. By connecting robust ERP capabilities with Snowflake’s cloud-native data platform, organizations can unlock the full value of their data assets.
This blog explores how to seamlessly transition ERP data—specifically from platforms like Salesforce and NetSuite—to Snowflake. We’ll examine the common challenges businesses face during this migration, outline best practices for successful integration, and share real-world use cases from BlueCloud’s experience helping clients modernize their ERP data pipelines.
Best Practices for Optimizing Data Pipelines from ERP Systems to Snowflake
Migrating ERP data to Snowflake is a high-impact move—but it comes with real challenges around architecture, data quality, and integration complexity. Taylor Youssefi, Senior Account Executive and data expert at BlueCloud, shares proven best practices to help you overcome these obstacles and build a modern, scalable data foundation.
Designing a Robust Data Architecture
Challenge: Many ERP data migrations fail because pipelines aren’t built to scale, adapt, or protect sensitive business data.
Solution: “Start with a flexible, cloud-native architecture that can evolve with your needs. Tools like Fivetran offer pre-built connectors for SAP and other ERP platforms, automatically mapping data to Snowflake’s structure—ensuring a secure, scalable foundation from day one.”
Data Quality Management
Challenge: Inconsistent or incomplete data leads to flawed analysis and poor business decisions.
Solution: “Prioritize quality from the start. Implement automated validation checks, set up monitoring dashboards, and use data integration features to ensure that every data point flowing from Salesforce or NetSuite to Snowflake is trustworthy, clean, and analytics-ready.”
Automation and Monitoring
Challenge: Manual data integration is slow, error-prone, and resource-intensive—especially with complex ERP systems.
Solution: “Automate your ETL (or ELT) pipelines. Real-time monitoring ensures pipeline health and allows for rapid troubleshooting.”
Choosing the Right Tools
Challenge: The wrong integration tools can stall your project with excessive maintenance, high costs, or limited ERP support.
Solution: “Use tools purpose-built for ERP-to-cloud migration. FiveTran offers automated, secure connectors specifically for SAP and Salesforce. Matillion supports complex data transformations directly in Snowflake, and Airflow adds orchestration flexibility—giving you a tech stack that’s enterprise-grade and future-proof.”
Real-World Impact: How BlueCloud Helped a Leading Advisory Service Provider Optimize Their ERP Data Pipelines
“When it comes to enabling real-time business insights, the foundation lies in robust, efficient data pipelines.” — Taylor Youssefi, Senior Account Executive at BlueCloud
The Challenge: Inefficient Loads, Complex ERP Systems
For a fast-growing technology and advisory services provider, the challenge was clear: they needed a smarter way to ingest large volumes of data from Salesforce and NetSuite into Snowflake—without overloading resources or compromising performance.
“Leadership needed to bring data from Salesforce and NetSuite into Snowflake. And they needed to do many incremental loads of this data to get the most value out of what they were collecting.” Taylor explained.
Initially, the plan relied on full data loads—an approach that quickly proved costly and unsustainable, especially with the complex structure of NetSuite’s data model. Our team immediately recognized the challenge this posed for both performance and long-term scalability.
NetSuite's technical complexity required more than just plug-and-play connector. It demanded deep platform expertise, intelligent reconciliation logic, and a scalable ingestion approach tailored to the business's rapid growth model.
The Solution: Smarter Ingestion with Rivery and Snowflake
To meet these demands, the team turned to Rivery, a data orchestration tool designed to simplify complex ETL processes. Instead of full loads, they implemented incremental data loading, ensuring only new or updated data was ingested.
“We created a solution to build data pipelines using Rivery,” Taylor noted. “Rivery played an important role, but Snowflake was critical. Power BI and NetSuite expertise was also important.”
The architecture combined:
- Rivery for orchestrating incremental, low-maintenance data ingestion
- Snowflake for scalable, secure cloud storage and querying
- Power BI for front-end analytics and strategic reporting
- BlueCloud’s ERP expertise to optimize data accuracy and modeling from source to insight
“The solution was a good technical win— but more importantly it helped our client’s ability build accurate forecasting models and start exploring AI/ML possibilities,” said Taylor.
The Impact: Smarter Decisions, Faster Growth
Thanks to the optimized data architecture, the client gained clear visibility into its opportunity pipeline in real time. And they couldn't do that analysis without having access to the data.
Being able to analyze data that's coming from NetSuite and Salesforce allows our client to better analyze their pipeline and understand which opportunities are more likely to close based on similar past opportunities. It allows them to understand so much more about their business as a whole, from projected invoicing dates to maximizing cash flow.
With these new insights, the client can now focus their efforts where they’ll have the biggest impact—putting teams on high-probability deals and cutting down on wasted time.
Modern Data Architecture is the Foundation for Growth and Agility
Taylor explains that this project highlights that modern data architecture isn’t just about moving data—it’s about empowering faster, smarter, and more confident decision-making.
“If you have the ability to frequently access near real-time data and ask questions of it, then you can make business decisions faster—with more belief in what you're doing, because you have the data to back it up. And that belief powers everything from supply chain agility to smarter staffing and long-term scalability.”
Overall, organizations that move their ERP data and analytics into Snowflake can eliminate complexity, cut costs, and break free from proprietary systems—replacing them with a simpler, more scalable, secure, and cost-effective solution.
Explore our services to learn how we can help you unlock powerful insights by bringing your ERP data into Snowflake—without the limitations of working directly in your ERP system.
