Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has seen its first significant change in buying habits for 15 years, as companies look for quicker ROI during the economic crisis, according to Agresso.
Mid-market ERP provider Agresso’s third quarter global results revealed a 37% increase in revenue and sales, with the company claiming many significant new orders over €1m (£866,000).
The company says this compares favourably to rivals such as SAP, who reported a 9% year-over-year decline in new license revenues over the same period.
John Crooks, managing director of Agresso UK, said: “ERP buying habits are changing. The downward trend we see in SAP licensing revenues suggests that organisations are unwilling to invest in a solution that hooks them into a never-ending cycle of need-spend-need-spend. With a recession on the horizon, unnecessary IT spending is no longer an option. This is especially true for organisations in the people centric or services sector, where change is frequent and inevitable.”
A report into the impact of ERP platforms on an organisation’s perceived ability to make changes, carried out by Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC), found that 70% of ERP users feel notably disadvantaged by their existing systems.
“We’ve been selling to businesses that were spending huge amounts of their annual IT budgets on expensive consultants just keeping their ‘Big ERP’ systems current,” said Crooks.
“Difficult economic times are forcing them to look at the value in this and to consider other, better value options as they look to controlling and minimising costs. With Agresso, organisations enjoy post-implementation agility; business users are able to change and update their system themselves, long after their implementation phase is complete.”
Other vendors with a presence in the ERP space include SAP, Sage, NetSuite, Oracle and Lawson.
