The Future of ERP

After attending NetSuite’s SuiteWorld today, particularly the Breakout Session with Forrester Research VP and Principal Analyst Paul Hamerman, there were some bold predictions as to the future of ERP. The more obvious prediction is the move to SaaS solutions.

Paul Hamerman spoke at length at how even established on-premise ERP providers will need to start offering SaaS solutions in order to stay competitive. One way he thought that these established companies would move to SaaS would be to simply purchase companies that offer SaaS solutions and then offer them as there own. We could see more mergers in the future like the Infor-Lawson merger that is underway.

Another interesting takeaway was the move for ERP to become compatible with mobile devices. According to Hamerman, Tablets will overcome laptops in terms of popularity in a mere 3 years. This means that ERP providers will need to make sure they offer solutions that are mobile compatible as well.

Hamerman noted that the quickest segment to adapt to SaaS solutions is CRM and HCM. While accounting is still lagging behind which is contributed to the fear of having financial data stored on a server that isn’t on-premise. Hamerman predicts that in the next 3 to 5 years, accounting and financial software will catch up with CRM and HCM.

It will be interesting to see how ERP software vendors can continuously adapt their products to keep up with the latest mobile devices while continuing to improve their SaaS solutions. The next 3 to 5 years are going to be busy ones for ERP vendors.

• Array
•