Today, there is no manufacturing cloud ERP provider with the size or scale of Salesforce.com or Workday. Contrary to popular belief, this is not because the opportunity is small. Manufacturing still comprises a large percentage of US companies and is an enormous opportunity for cloud ERP. This post outlines the challenges that cloud ERP providers face and what it will take for them to dominate the market for manufacturing systems.
Small business doesn’t always mean simple business. Like larger companies, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) need to reach new markets, develop new products, satisfy customers, and control costs. The main difference is that SMBs need to do these things with fewer resources. In recent years, software vendors have announced new products to address the challenges facing small businesses. This post outlines two of them.
FinancialForce continues to show strong momentum in the cloud ERP market, and it is building out its product capabilities in interesting ways. In this post, we provide an update on FinancialForce, based on interviews we conducted with its executives at Dreamforce, the annual conference for users of Salesforce.com. We also provide recommendations for buyers considering FinancialForce.
Salesforce.com is proving to be a popular platform for developing ERP systems. In this post, we review the latest developments with Kenandy, one of five ERP providers building on the Salesforce platform. Kenandy stands out as taking a different strategy for selling into large companies, while continuing to target the SMB market as a complete ERP solution. We also provide recommendations for where Kenandy is a good fit for ERP buyers.
Infor is doing interesting work in its CloudSuite initiative to offer industry-specific solutions deployed on the cloud. But it faces two challenges. First, it must convince a greater share of its 70,000 customers to upgrade to its latest versions. Then, if it does convince them, Infor will need to have the implementation resources trained and available to support those customer migrations. This post sums up the status of these initiatives with recommendations for Infor customers.
Salesforce.com is not only the industry’s most well-known cloud CRM system. It is also a platform for a variety of other software providers. This post outlines the latest developments with the four ERP providers building on the Salesforce platform: Kenandy, FinancialForce, Rootstock, and AscentERP. We conclude with a caveat for buyers.
Like the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, cloud vendors today are rushing into new territory to stake their claims. One provider that has joined the land rush is FinancialForce.com, which recently announced new branding to signal its claim in cloud ERP. This post provides an overview of the cloud ERP landscape and the latest vendor to stake a claim.
As the first cloud-only manufacturing ERP system, Plex Systems has a wide footprint of functionality. Nevertheless, after more than a decade of development, Plex has fewer than 1000 customers and its presence is limited mostly to smaller manufacturing companies in a few sub-sectors. So, what does Plex need to do to grow at a more substantial pace in the coming years? We see six mandates.
At its annual user conference in May, cloud ERP provider NetSuite promoted enhanced functionality for manufacturing companies. As manufacturing firms are increasingly open to cloud solutions, NetSuite is at the right place at the right time. Nevertheless, there are a number of decision points for NetSuite as it continues to build out its manufacturing footprint.