Top-10 trends of ERP for 2012

The Panorama Consulting Group research company prepared the list of the main trends which will have an impact on the world market of ERP systems in 2012. Among them there are both negative, and positive trends. For example, one of the guarding predictions is growth of number of failure ERP projects and claims to system integrators.

The continuing consolidation of the industry

Experts of Panorama Consulting believe that the market of ERP systems will continue to be consolidated. Lawson Software purchase by Infor company was only the beginning. The barrier to entry into the market of ERP is rather low, and it led to emergence of a large number of suppliers: about 200 vendors of the proprietary systems. At the same time global economic conditions now not too favor to such business so the activity M&A among vendors will be very high.

Shift of forces among leaders

Vendors of ERP systems of the first level are expected by "shake-up". As "the big three" of ERP of the market on behalf of SAP, is not going to hand over to Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics positions, will appear wishing among players of the second echelon this share somehow to win. For example, after purchase of Lawson Infor it will appear in a step from players of the second level whereas they, in turn, continue grow very quickly, especially in the market of systems for medium and small business. IFS, Epicor, Kinaxis and QAD treat the second level of vendors, for example.

Growth of number of failure projects

Analysts with regret state the continuing growth of number of failure ERP projects, this trend will remain. "make poor IT budgets and widespread approach itself" are the main reason of ERP failures.

Growth of number of claims to suppliers of ERP

From the previous point obviously that after a squall of ERP failures also the number of claims of customers to system integrators and vendors will grow. Moreover, in the market demand for specialized services in giving and service of such claims grows. So 2012, experts promise, will be held under the motto "Epic Fail".

Demand for services of integrators will increase

As it was already told above, attempts of implementation of ERP systems without involvement of consultants are often doomed to a failure. So top management should draw conclusions on hopelessness of such approach, as a result, demand for services of system integrators will increase. The companies will come to understanding that the experienced consultants having wide experience of similar implementations are capable to execute the project better, quicker and much cheaper.

Development of the ERP SaaS model

Providers of SaaS solutions of ERP will continue to occupy a small market share in general. However, if earlier such companies as Salesforce.com, Plex Systems, Netsuite, Kinaxis and Workday generally worked with small business, then now they will begin to expand borders of own business at the expense of medium-sized companies.

Convergence of CRM and social media

Industry analysts speak about convergence of CRM and social media already for a row of years, but the next year will become a point of active start for implementation of this concept. Possibilities of corporate CRM will be actively crossed to social platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It will create opportunities for more perfect customer relationship management.

Mismatch of ERP systems to business needs

In recent years a lot of things changed: the economy took a strong list, some companies left the market while clients became more and more exacting. For the last several years not all companies actively invested in development of ERP so now they were owners of systems which occasionally in a root do not correspond to their own business. They should be engaged in either upgrade of existing solutions, or installation new instead of obsolete ERP.

More careful choice of ERP platforms

Fortunately, most the companies is capable to study on the errors so in the future they will find much more time and forces for process of selection of a suitable system and will do it more competently. The maximum decrease in possible risks from unsuccessful implementation of improper software will become the main task of this stage.

Tekhnologo-centrichny approach will create problems to integrators

Traditional tekhnologo-centrichny approach to implementation of ERP most of which system integrators confesses, partners and resellers will create for them more and more difficulties. Too big emphasis on functionality of the software usually testifies to defects in such major areas as design of business processes, change management in the companies and project management in general. System integrators should learn it or to enter partnership with the consultants having the corresponding competences.