What are organisations looking for from ERP systems these days? Clearly they do still want their data and processes to operate in an integrated way; they do still want consistency within those processes; and most importantly they want value from those systems, both in terms of reduced operating costs and better information to make informed decisions.
So is one provider the way to go or, with the onset of service orientated architectures, is ‘best of breed’ now a viable option for organisations who need the level of business process visibility that makes a real impact on how they go to market in the future? We researched these questions in this year’s Evaluation Centre survey.
From the results, it’s clear that ERP packages still play a significant role in organisations’ enterprise applications environments. Nearly half the companies interviewed (49%) deploy them either as their main application strategy (23%), or in combination with bespoke solutions (13%) or additional standalone packages (13%).
Nevertheless, a significant number of companies have steered away from the integrated approach and based their core systems either on standalone best of breed packages (23%) or bespoke solutions (17%).
A number of factors have shaped companies’ applications environments. The need to improve business processes is key for 63% of respondents, in order to make their business more efficient and competitive.