Which ERP Vendor Provides the Best Small Business Enterprise Software?
Enterprise software is beneficial to large- and mid-sized companies operating in a wide range of environments from manufacturing to distribution to engineering and service. Historically, it has been mostly Fortune 1000 companies that have had the resources to implement ERP solutions. In recent years, however, small- to medium-sized organizations have fueled a majority of growth in the ERP software industry.
Enterprise software for the small businesses is evolving and more software options are becoming available. This week’s poll asks which ERP vendor provides the best small business enterprise software?
This Week’s ERP Software Poll
In Your Opinion, Which ERP Vendor Provides the Best Small Business Enterprise Software?
- Microsoft Dynamics (46%, 65 Votes)
- Other (19%, 27 Votes)
- SAP (16%, 23 Votes)
- Oracle JD Edwards (9%, 13 Votes)
- Netsuite (4%, 5 Votes)
- Quickbooks (3%, 4 Votes)
- None (3%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 140
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About Eric Kimberling
After 15 years of ERP consulting at large firms including PricewaterhouseCoopers and SchlumbergerSema, Eric realized the need for an independent consulting firm that really understands ERP. He began his career as an ERP organizational change management consultant and eventually broadened his background to include implementation project management and software selection. Eric’s background includes extensive ERP software selection, ERP organizational change, and ERP implementation project management experience. Throughout his career, Eric has helped dozens of high-profile and global companies with their ERP initiatives, including Kodak, Samsonite, Coors, Duke Energy, and Lucent Technologies to name a few. In addition to extensive ERP experience, Eric has also helped clients with business process re-engineering, merger and acquisition integration, strategic planning, and six sigma. Eric holds an MBA from Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.
Great topic for a poll. Thank you. I was surprised not to see Oracle PeopleSoft on the list. I have run an SMB (~1000 employees) on Oracle PeopleSoft for 10 years — they won 2 RFP processes (one for first implementation as PeopleSoft, one as a ‘what else is out there’ bid as Oracle) here. It is often thought of as a major ERP, but it scales nicely for us.
Ted Simpson
tsimpson@tsimpson.net
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Good topic! ERP is becoming more and more important to small businesses. With flexible pricing and lower cost of cloud computing technology, small businesses can totally afford ERP solutions. For retail part, I believe customer relationship management and supply chain management are the cores of ERP solutions.
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I may be prejudiced, but SYSPRO clearly provides the best small business enterprise software. The validity of this statement is proven by the fact that SYSPRO has one of the highest customer retention rates in the industry.
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Interesting topic. Depends on the implementation team, Dynamics and the RIGHT partner should be in the mix, agree with other comments re: Syspro, I also like the cloud option, i.e. NetSuite (if you fit into their vertical profile), very good technology from Australia that is winning deals in North America is Pronto Xi, Consona is good if u are a manufacturer (they have strong post sales team)…Cheers John
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Packaged/Off-the-shelf ERP and small business do not and cannot go together. A packaged ERP is by nature not flexible; an SMB is by nature flexible and agile; it has to be otherwise it won’t survive. I haven’t seen a single case where an ERP is not supported by a series of spreadsheets or a parallel system of some sort to make the inflexible system in place more flexible.
An irreversible trend has started many years ago: the manufacturing sector is shrinking at an alarming rate, large corporations are moving their manufacturing arm to different countries. So what will left is SMBs and the service sector. Packaged or ready-made ERP do not go with either.
SMBs: as markets shrink, SMBs in order to stay alive have to reinvent themselves and move laterally instead of upwards. This means a serious alteration of the system in place. The system in place has to be able to mutate fairly quickly and at an acceptable cost to support the periodic changes in the company’s business model. No packaged ERP can do that.
The service sector: Businesses processes/work flows in the service sector are more complex and varied than in manufacturing. Moreover it is much more prone the changes over time (usually within a year or two). No ERP can accommodate continuous changes.
I have seen these trends in 3 of my clients; their business models have substantially evolved in the last 2 years and they continue to evolve as markets keep shifting. The systems in place are in continuous change.
Pick two companies in the same sector, catering to the same market segment and you are guaranteed to find two different ways of working, two different business processes. The processes are similar but they are different. The differences seem minor, but they are crucial. It is these differences that allow each entity to stay alive in its own niche; this is especially true and vital for SMBs. Many discount or downplay this factor and try hard to persuade the company to travesty its work flow to fit by all means the ERP’s rigid requirements. Those who do, are most of the time either system resellers or accountants; i.e. someone who peddles someone else’s bloatedware. How can a SAP or Sage or NetSuite claim that their system is good for my company when they have only a general idea about my business processes?
My business is round. Sage is triangular, won’t fit. MS Dynamics is square, no good either. How about EPICOR, it is round…. Darn no luck, my business is 5ft in diameter, EPICOR 7ft. But wait a minute, NetSuite is almost round, it’s hexagonal. All we need to do is trim the edges to make it rounder and distort my company’s shape by stretching a bit here, a bit there and some more over there to make it more hexagonal, jam one into the other and voila. Come back a year or two later and you’ll find a bloated system patched up with workarounds and stitched with parallel systems from nearly every side.
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I realise that your website is primarily aimed at non-SaaS ERP solutions but as Tom Coyes says SMBs don’t go well together with packaged ERP. SaaS is the best bet for flexibility, scalability and cost reasons and SMB owners should at least consider SaaS even if it means sacrificing somewhat their exact specifications. In fact, maybe if they can’t find all of their requirements in a SaaS solution that might mean that they’re asking something that is either too much or against the established industry standards.
For a more in depth comparison of SaaS and traditional ERP, feel free to check my post on the matter at:
http://blog.megaventory.com/2011/12/whats-cloud-erp-and-why-its-better-than.html
In any case I believe that readers who come across this post and are pondering an ERP solution should give SaaS a spin (that’s also easier in SaaS compared to any alternative).
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I have to say that agree with much of what Tom Coyes wrote above, particularly:
“Pick two companies in the same sector, catering to the same market segment and you are guaranteed to find two different ways of working, two different business processes. The processes are similar but they are different. The differences seem minor, but they are crucial. It is these differences that allow each entity to stay alive in its own niche; this is especially true and vital for SMBs.”
None of our clients are alike even though some “do the same thing,” and it’s their differences that give them their respective competitive advantages. This is why customization is and always will remain very important; it is often through customization that clients can achieve the promised benefits of ERP.
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