SAP ERP Loses Another Customer to NetSuite

Gartner estimates that SAP has about 27% of the ERP market, but there is no doubt the company is losing customers due to increased maintenance and licensing fees. To keep their users, SAP is offering free analytics and drumming up excitement for their SaaS service, Business ByDesign. Still, they might need to work harder—NetSuite recently poached one of SAP’s clients, and is proudly trumpeting this defeat in the press.

SAP’s CEO Léo Apotheker stated at a recent Gartner convention that their suite will “continue to evolve and add functionality,” and the most recent manifestation of this evolution is the free embedded analytics now available. And Business ByDesign will be generally available next year (it’s currently being tested by 100 customers), though SAP won’t move entirely toward on-demand services.

But for former SAP customers like COMMCO, a Kansas City, Mo., distribution and light manufacturing company, SAP still doesn’t offer enough. COMMCO has been around since 2001, and inherited the SAP R/3 system from the company’s previous owner. They recently switched to NetSuite OneWorld, and Franklin Christopher, COMMCO’s President and CEO, cited SAP’s maintenance and upgrading costs as a factor in their decision.

But it wasn’t simply the cost-efficiency offered by NetSuite’s cloud platform—Christopher said that SAP’s on-premise offering only provided about 30% of the functionality offered by OneWorld. NetSuite’s solution also provided COMMCO a smooth transition within a couple weeks, and more customization options for role-tailoring dashboards. SAP is an ERP giant, to be sure, but it’ll be interesting to see if they can hold their ground with the current demands for cheaper systems and SaaS functionalities.

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