Data sovereignty means a company keeps control over where its business data lives, who accesses it, and how it can be exported or deleted. With cloud ERP, operations shift to the provider, but responsibility for compliance stays with the customer.

Questions to answer before signing a contract:

• Location: Which data center holds the data? Does it meet GDPR and industry-specific requirements?
• Access: Who at the provider has technical access? Are subcontractors documented?
• Export: Can data be exported completely and in a machine-readable format?
• Termination: What happens to data after the contract ends? What are the deletion periods and handover format?

Cloud hosting in Germany alone does not answer every question. What matters is the contract, the operating model and the exit strategy. Cloud vs. on-premise is one dimension, not the whole sovereignty debate.

On-premise gives maximum infrastructure control but requires an internal or external operations team. Hybrid models are possible if the ERP and its data stay portable.

Data sovereignty and digital sovereignty belong in every ERP RFP, on equal footing with features and price.