Focus now on cloud readiness, mobility
THE consolidation in the ERP market has settled down of late and the main focus is now on bigger players acquiring niche solution providers, particularly those with mobile and cloud expertise.
Deon Eachells, director of solutions management at EOH subsidiary Softworx, says these acquisitions will enable them to adapt their software so that certain functionality can be used on a software as a service basis by multiple customers.
He says ERP suppliers are also enabling customers to develop additional functionality in the form of plug-in modules and make them available in an app store for other companies to use, if they are willing to do so.
“Some companies may not want to share the functionality they have developed because they feel it gives them a competitive edge.”
Eachells says Infor has signed an agreement with Amazon to enable customers to store data from its ERP solution in the cloud and access it from anywhere, from any device.
He says ERP suppliers are also working on providing solutions for specific industries and different types of businesses within those industries.
Taryn Cromie, sales manager for Africa at HansaWorld, says the main areas of research and development for ERP software suppliers are cloud readiness and mobility.
“But it is more difficult to cloudenable older applications.”
This gives suppliers of newer ERP applications that are developed with the latest technologies and in line with current trends an advantage.
Phil Duff, CEO of Syspro, says it is tough to get new business in a market where a lot of companies already have an ERP system.
He says when new business peters out, ERP suppliers will have to focus on other revenue streams such as maintenance fees and upgrading clients with new functionality such as mobility.
Mobile functionality will help managers to keep their finger on the pulse of the business and get aggregated information, instead of wading through lengthy reports.
Duff says some functions such as purchase order approvals and workflow monitoring lend themselves more to mobility than others.
Daniel Hall, country manager at Magic Software SA, says some ERP software suppliers are creating portals that allow users to view, access and update certain information from a mobile device.
“But customers are not really ready for this yet.”
He says ERP suppliers must decide whether to build mobile applications for specific functions or develop a more general browser-based mobile solution.
The application route will allow them to provide richer functionality, for example allowing users to take a photo of a product item and attach it to a purchase order, says Hall.
“But to get different mobile devices to all behave in the same way when accessing applications is more complex than is being claimed.”
Steve Cohen, MD of Sage Pastel, says accounting applications are easy to use and take a couple of days to install, whereas ERP is more complex, provides more functionality, is expensive to install and often requires companies to re-engineer their business.
He says another issue is that ERP is not generic and each company wants to do something different with it.
“ERP is not a trivial investment and once the installers have left the company will have to appoint an in-house custodian who has the skills to manage the system,” says Cohen.
This person will need to be accounting savvy and IT savvy, and it is difficult for a small company to find someone with both these attributes.
“Companies not prepared to make this commitment are better off staying with an accounting system,” he says.