The ‘cloud’ is changing everything - new entrants to the ERP market have hindsight, foresight and agility in their favour.

Looking back we see cost and complexity, looking forward we see savvier small business owners wanting easy to afford, use and roll out ERP. Not ‘off the shelf’ accounting, dispirit CRM and mid office systems, high costs and long term commitments. There are thousands of niches all needing a custom (or vertical if you will)solution. A few ‘big’ vendors cannot possibly service this need and one vendor alone certainly cannot.

What’s needed here is the collective thought and actions of a tribe of small business ERP vendors and VARS.

I’ll warmly welcome, debate and work with folks to give this much needed change some momentum.

Cheers

Nick

CEO

http://www.salesorder.com

small business (ERP) heroes

If I were a small- to mid-sized business enterprise, here’s what I’d like from my VAR:

1. Help identifying exactly — not generically — WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE in my organization (the “system” that goes beyond the software and the hardware) so that I can be assured that I can make more money tomorrow than I’m making today.

2. Help me and my management team determine WHAT THE CHANGE SHOULD LOOK LIKE. Help us determine what elements in the CHANGE actually NEED technology to aid in the change.

3. Tell me HOW TO EFFECT THE CHANGE. Don’t tell me I need traditional ERP — an EVERYTHING REPLACEMENT PROJECT. Give between one and five very specific areas where I can make changes that will INCREASE THROUGHPUT, REDUCE INVENTORIES or the DEMAND FOR NEW INVESTMENT, and/or DRIVE DOWN OR HOLD THE LINE ON OPERATING EXPENSES while I grow my business.

…

Extending your point about Web 2.0 style usability, application of Web 2.0 is not only about usability – but it’s also about a shift in the thinking – from one way communication (broadcast) towards a more 2 way communication (collaborative approach) – SMB are requesting for ERP solutions with support for online communities. It enables businesses to provide customer service to their customers at a relatively lower cost and increase engagement, participating and apparently trust.

Infact most of the ERP vendors have realized this and are adding the social touch to their products in one or the other way

Michael Kringsman recommended me to ask you a question that I have. So, I have one question and may be you can answer.

I worked in SAP in US for 2 years and now I’m working for a local company as a SAP manager. I also have my own ERP company established from where I plan to support local as well as off shore SAP projects. I have a team to do that. I am trying to know how can I have some kind of contract with SAP on any kind of SAP rights in Nepal. For example, licensing agreement or educational partner which will make me SAP’s agent in Nepal to implement SAP, if required. Are you aware of such scenarios?

Looking forward
to hear from you.

Kind Regards
Prabin

Adding to Doug Hadden’s post above [vertical specialization] and with regards to ‘rapid implementation’, this is something we have to address as VARs as not only is it directly related to the ROI, it is also needed to increase trust and confidence. However, to ensure that ‘the last mile of industry solution’ is delivered it does require investment by the VAR (opposed to the software vendor / author) especially in smaller industry groups. Otherwise the ‘last industry mile’ and ‘rapid implementation’ conflict with each other when having to tailor the solution to deliver this last mile of productivity.

In addition to Doug Hadden’s post, the need to be agile is also needed after the solution is live. This allows SMEs to continue to grow efficiently unimpeded by software rigidity and is (in my opinion) an often overlooked aspect of a system when looking to install a solution that will help the organisation now.

Thanks for the continued insights and analysis.

Speed to implementation and ease of use/adminstration are becoming key concerns for small business. It is very much about agility.

Technology markets mature. Vendors in the early market often need to support complex feature sets because their customers are quite large. Therefore, excellent products from market leaders like Oracle and SAP were skewed with larger businesses in mind. Their challenge, today, is to adjust products for this market - not dumb them down - actually smarten them up. Focus on the need rather than “features”. User driven.

Many of the companies that you mention in your tags have been able to achieve faster implementations and lower long-term costs through some vertical specialization.