Big enterprise resource planning (ERP) players are losing out in the accountancy software market to smaller, more specialized firms, according to a report from market analyst IT Europa.com. SAP AG, Baan Co NV and Oracle, despite their massive market capitalizations and user bases, are misfiring in the small to medium sized business space, argues the report ERP & Accountancy VARs and Vendors, Europe’s top 350.
The reasons are partly due to the declining demand for ERP over the last 12 months, suggests Nick Mays, deputy editor of the report. Fears of Y2K has triggered corporate lock-downs on new implementations of large, expensive applications, and diverted IT spend to remediation work.
Nor have the ERP Goliaths successfully negotiated the transition to the mid-market, where firms like the UK’s Sage Group, France’s Ares, and US firm Great Plains have made strides. The expanding demand for accountancy packages from the low-end of the market is due, says Mays, to firms’ increasing desire to spread across Europe. The smaller packages are also more attractive than the ERP players’ expensive systems which traditionally take several months to install.
