In the beginning ERP was considered out of reach by almost all the companies of SME sector and as a tool of fortune 500 companies who could spend huge sums of money on purchasing the software, installing robust IT infrastructure and could dedicate manpower, time and money for its implementation. But with the change in time and with rise of more and more ERP solution providing companies the upper market got very competitive, now to grow and bear the growing expenditures the software companies have developed marketing strategies to target mid and small size market. This has initiated change in the design and structure of present day ERP to suit to the needs of SME market.
As it is easily understandable that the benefits of ERP are more realistic and practical to SME than large companies, as large companies can invest money and manpower to find out an alternative way of doing tasks, such cushion is not with SME, the biggest disclaimer is the amount of money a mid size company have to invest to get the benefits of ERP. So the ERP solutions for SME need to be cost effective and easy to implement. The professional services which a large organization can avail a small or mid size company may not be able to. More cost effective ERP software with less complex implementation process is the most suitable option for SME.
Low cost of implementation alone cannot get ERP solution down the throat of SME market. Some of the mid size companies might be small in size and business, but they might be working in the market for quite some time. And it has been noted, in most of the cases, that such companies have number of different types of systems working simultaneously in one organization. When ERP is implemented all of those systems either need to be integrated with the ERP or the old data has to be converted according to the format and design required by the ERP to understand, for smooth and trouble free transition and working. This calls for a flexible architecture of ERP software which should be able to integrate with different software, platforms and operating systems.
Most of the SME would like to deploy ERP in a step by step process where they will switch over one module after another, this makes the process easier and less cumbersome. To target SME market companies have started offering ERP software in suite, which allows the buyer to purchase one application with complete functionality of a particular department of organization like SCM, CRM, Financial management etc and with smooth and easy integration facilities with other applications. Instead of buying whole ERP for the organization switching over in steps is more attractive for SME units.
Hosted ERP, cloud computing, SaaS models have been promoted by almost every ERP company and with a primary aim of attracting more clients from SME sector. These models take away most of the worries and deterrents of companies from SME market regarding ERP implementation and cost. The availability of top ERP solutions in such models has been the major factor that has played its role in making ERP popular in SME market.
Read about ERP Selection for SME. Also know the ERP Software Benefits.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
ERP Software Companies - SAP, Oracle, Infor and Microsoft
With growth in the popularity of ERP software more and more companies have come up with the plans of owning ERP for their organization, this led to more software companies jumping in the market to fill in the demand with industry specific, solution based and economical ERP solutions.
SAP was established in 1972 in Germany and is largest software service provider in the world today, initially SAP’s ERP solutions were robust and costly and were stamped as solutions for fortune 500 companies only. Today latest version of SAP ERP is SAP ECC 6.0 which was previously named as SAP R/3, other products for mid size and small companies are SAP business one and SAP all in one. These all are part of SAP business suite, SAP business by design is in software as service model for providing hosted ERP solution to its clients.
Oracle Corporation famous for its database and hardware solutions today provides suite of business applications which can perform tasks like CRM, SCM ERP and financial management. Oracle comes with few solutions like Oracle E-business suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards enterprise one, JD Edwards world and Siebel. Oracle has made number of famous acquisitions which has improved the versatility in its solution list. The company gained third biggest revenue after Microsoft and IBM and provides services like consulting, training, SaaS and support.
Infor Global Solution is another big player of ERP market established in 2002 with the name of Agilisys in USA, later after acquisition of Infor Global Solutions the company changed its name to its present name. Infor apart from ERP solutions provide number of specific solutions for SCM, CRM, Enterprise asset management, Work force management, Product management, PLM, HCM and Financial management. Industry specific solutions like for Public sector and Hospitality industry also gives Infor a unique identity in the market. Infor ERP solutions have been very popular in manufacturing industry because of its support for all types of manufacturing methods lean, discrete and process.
Microsoft Corporation has four ERP products which have been enhanced and developed after acquisitions which Microsoft made. Microsoft GP, NAV, SL and AX are four ERP solutions along with CRM, all the ERP solutions have almost similar modules and effort was made by Microsoft to merge them to form a single ERP solution which failed.
Companies like Epicor have also worked out a place for themselves amongst the big players of the ERP market by providing economical and solutions focused for particular business areas. Epicor comes with number of enterprise solutions for mid size and small companies like supply chain management which includes support to other areas like customer relationship, supplier relationship and supply chain execution. Other offerings from the company cover areas like human capital, retail, service and IT services management. Epicor tried to unify all the solutions in Epicor 9 to provide one single solution but this product needs some more enhancements for proper functioning.
Netsuite is world's leading hosted ERP service provider, though company mainly focuses on mid size market and has chunk of its clientele from this sector but has launched Netsuite Global one which supports divisions of large organizations and companies with many subsidiaries and divisions by features like consolidation, multi-currency, and languages.
There are numerous other small and big ERP solution providers like Sage, Syspro, Ramco, Intacct, Lawson Software, Baan etc playing an important role in developing the ERP market.
Read about Selection of ERP Software. Also know about Selection of ERP Vendors.
SAP was established in 1972 in Germany and is largest software service provider in the world today, initially SAP’s ERP solutions were robust and costly and were stamped as solutions for fortune 500 companies only. Today latest version of SAP ERP is SAP ECC 6.0 which was previously named as SAP R/3, other products for mid size and small companies are SAP business one and SAP all in one. These all are part of SAP business suite, SAP business by design is in software as service model for providing hosted ERP solution to its clients.
Oracle Corporation famous for its database and hardware solutions today provides suite of business applications which can perform tasks like CRM, SCM ERP and financial management. Oracle comes with few solutions like Oracle E-business suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards enterprise one, JD Edwards world and Siebel. Oracle has made number of famous acquisitions which has improved the versatility in its solution list. The company gained third biggest revenue after Microsoft and IBM and provides services like consulting, training, SaaS and support.
Infor Global Solution is another big player of ERP market established in 2002 with the name of Agilisys in USA, later after acquisition of Infor Global Solutions the company changed its name to its present name. Infor apart from ERP solutions provide number of specific solutions for SCM, CRM, Enterprise asset management, Work force management, Product management, PLM, HCM and Financial management. Industry specific solutions like for Public sector and Hospitality industry also gives Infor a unique identity in the market. Infor ERP solutions have been very popular in manufacturing industry because of its support for all types of manufacturing methods lean, discrete and process.
Microsoft Corporation has four ERP products which have been enhanced and developed after acquisitions which Microsoft made. Microsoft GP, NAV, SL and AX are four ERP solutions along with CRM, all the ERP solutions have almost similar modules and effort was made by Microsoft to merge them to form a single ERP solution which failed.
Companies like Epicor have also worked out a place for themselves amongst the big players of the ERP market by providing economical and solutions focused for particular business areas. Epicor comes with number of enterprise solutions for mid size and small companies like supply chain management which includes support to other areas like customer relationship, supplier relationship and supply chain execution. Other offerings from the company cover areas like human capital, retail, service and IT services management. Epicor tried to unify all the solutions in Epicor 9 to provide one single solution but this product needs some more enhancements for proper functioning.
Netsuite is world's leading hosted ERP service provider, though company mainly focuses on mid size market and has chunk of its clientele from this sector but has launched Netsuite Global one which supports divisions of large organizations and companies with many subsidiaries and divisions by features like consolidation, multi-currency, and languages.
There are numerous other small and big ERP solution providers like Sage, Syspro, Ramco, Intacct, Lawson Software, Baan etc playing an important role in developing the ERP market.
Read about Selection of ERP Software. Also know about Selection of ERP Vendors.
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