Last week’s NetSuite show, SuiteWorld, provided a detailed look into the future of work and business technology. It also marked a signal change in how we think of ERP and what ERP should be doing. This comes at a time when old ERP isn’t looking all that great.
Old ERP didn’t change well
Change in ERP (and related sub-suites like HR, Finance, etc.) has often come at a glacial pace. For example, I was talking about big data’s potential with the leadership of a major ERP vendor in the late-90s. Unfortunately, I was 20+ years ahead of their ability to commercialize it.
ERP vendors have struggled to evolve their ever-sprawling suites at a pace equal to the introduction rate of new innovative technologies (and business requirements). Their product lines are so vast that changing everything is time-consuming and very expensive for them and their customers. In fact, the larger a vendor and its products get, the more ossified things get. At some point, vendors quit apologizing for their ever-slowing innovation deployment rate. They start arguing that too much change too quickly would be bad for their customers or that customers can’t handle that level of disruptive change. Sure, that’s BS but vendors have gotten really practiced at using these hollow arguments.
Big shifts in ERP occur rarely. In my career, there have been only a few times when you could sense a major pivot was going to occur. Some of the big ones of note have included the:
Movement off of flat files and batch programs to database technology and real-time processing
Movement to client server in the 90s and the embrace of the Unix O/S and PCs
Shift to the cloud, decline of the data center and the ascendancy of multi-tenancy
There’s a new big shift underway NOW. This shift changes the focus of ERP from internally-focused transaction processing to a more cosmopolitan set of apps that really take advantage of external data and advanced tools.
Sourced from Diginomica