ERP Special technology report
progress towards leveraging better integration-related benefits depends on where individual companies are positioned within this evolutionary path.
Ian Wahlers, industry strategy director, Lawson Software reflects that, in terms of usability, ERP systems increasingly offer the ability to combine information and to manage processes more efficiently; pulling information together in one place and at the same time making it usable in a friendly workable way. “On the usability side Lawson has done a lot with the Microsoft .Net platform,” he explained. “We've worked with Microsoft in developing what we call the Lawson Smart Office, which integrates Microsoft Office, makes the screen very personable, facilitates online chat, pulls together a company’s enterprise applications, and much more.” On the application side, Wahlers has seen things go very much down the end-user vertical route, with ERP being more specifically tailored to certain vertical markets. This, he believes, has been one of the biggest shifts. Integration-wise, whilst adding functionality along that vertical capability, Wahlers has no doubt that users want to integrate vertically along their supply chains more and more. “And while the core essence
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Users will demand access to be made more universal yet secure, and hence we will see package vendors providing tablet-based and mobile device- based user interfaces for working with ERP products.” – Dinesh Mohan, Infosys Technologies.
of manufacturers or distributors is making margin out of making things or sending things, in the West there has been an increasing shift within the vendor
Dinesh Mohan, industry principal, enterprise solutions
community towards providing value- added services,” said Wahlers. “So at Lawson we have
developed service management; things that can go round the edges of the application such as aftermarket service, maintenance and so on.”
Cloud forecast Turner touched on the topic of Cloud computing. So, let’s look at the subject in greater detail from an ERP perspective, and enquire as to whether has the Software as a Service (SaaS) model – and the Cloud
concept in general – has had any notable level of impact on the ERP market so far? But before we get into the thick of the debate, Norwood provides his definition of the term: “Cloud computing is a broad area, but essentially provides businesses with access to elastic IT infrastructure and services usually via a utility service provider model. Computing in the Cloud also incorporates the SaaS model, which provides significant flexibility to companies of all sizes in terms of the way they run the business, how they
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choose to deploy ERP solutions, and take advantage of new technologies in order to support innovation and growth.” Norwood added that it is now possible for a company to get access to the latest technology for a fixed monthly fee, with little or no capital expenditure. “It’s another example of the Internet levelling the playing field, and enabling companies of all sizes to be competitive,” he said.
Norwood pointed out that Epicor has had a lot of interest since launching the Cloud version, or Express Edition, of Epicor Manufacturing (Epicor Express) in North America in 2010. “But, in truth, full-blown ERP SaaS offerings are only just reaching a point where customers are prepared to entrust their businesses to them,” he said. “Every vendor has implemented SaaS versions of their products in different ways, and many of these only offer SaaS which ties customers into a solution that would be costly to move away from. That is why we took the time to ensure that Epicor Express actually offered customers flexibility in deployment options – they can go from SaaS to on-premise with as little pain as possible, since it’s the same code base for both deployment options.” Bull observes that, from an ERP perspective, the market is only just starting to feel the impact of Cloud computing. However, he adds, ERP systems are now starting to take advantage of services that are made available in the Cloud by partners and service providers (such as credit card payment services, carrier and haulier services, etc.).
Turner points out that, according to Gartner, spending on SaaS enterprise applications will catapult to US$14.8 billion by 2012. “SaaS has transitioned from an emerging strategy to a mainstream alternative to traditional software licence models,” he said, adding: “New technologies – particularly Cloud computing, virtualisation and software conversion tools – can allow virtually any COBOL, Java or .NET application to be run
March 2011
MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT 15
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