Traditional business software models focusing on 3-letter acronyms (ERP, CRM, SCM, PLM etc) have matured and new forms of software (mobile, on-demand) and software delivery have evolved. The sun is setting on expensive software that requires months to deploy and hundreds of thousands of dollars in support and maintenance and upgrades. The good news for business software vendors is that customers continue to have a dire need for information and an even greater need for business automation. All of this driven by continuous change - shorter product cycles, greater competition and dynamic markets.
Software vendors should recognize this core need and strive to address this with solutions that match the pace of and enable business - mobile, low-cost, rapidly deployable, flexible. If the past is any indicator, then business transformations happen with the new surrounding the old , until the old is replaced. The evolution of mainframe computing to local networks, wide-area networks, distributed computing and desktops is one such model. The change in today's model based on ERP-centric computing would likely come from on-premise and on-demand applications and data resident on servers connected on the web, accessed via mobile and desktop applications.
Given that ERP vendors do not encourage customizations and changes to the core ERP system and other on-premise applications, the best alternative to extend functionality and introduce IT support of new/changed business processes would be best provided via on-demand applications that easily and quickly integrate with on-premise applications. SAP introduced an innovative extension framework called xApps a few years ago that offered quick, painless extensions to SAP functionality. The idea of xApps based out a cloud infrastructure would be compelling and enable extending the value of ERP for years to come.
Mobility adds a similar dimension and requirement to business processes - the need to extend the reach of business to customers, prospects, suppliers and partners. No longer will the 4-walls of a company limit the reach of a company. Since information is the DNA of a business, it must be accessible and communicated efficiently as far as the reach of business. And the IT support fro this must be nimble, flexible and cost-effective. This is the opportunity for today's software vendors.
Software vendors should recognize this core need and strive to address this with solutions that match the pace of and enable business - mobile, low-cost, rapidly deployable, flexible. If the past is any indicator, then business transformations happen with the new surrounding the old , until the old is replaced. The evolution of mainframe computing to local networks, wide-area networks, distributed computing and desktops is one such model. The change in today's model based on ERP-centric computing would likely come from on-premise and on-demand applications and data resident on servers connected on the web, accessed via mobile and desktop applications.
Given that ERP vendors do not encourage customizations and changes to the core ERP system and other on-premise applications, the best alternative to extend functionality and introduce IT support of new/changed business processes would be best provided via on-demand applications that easily and quickly integrate with on-premise applications. SAP introduced an innovative extension framework called xApps a few years ago that offered quick, painless extensions to SAP functionality. The idea of xApps based out a cloud infrastructure would be compelling and enable extending the value of ERP for years to come.
Mobility adds a similar dimension and requirement to business processes - the need to extend the reach of business to customers, prospects, suppliers and partners. No longer will the 4-walls of a company limit the reach of a company. Since information is the DNA of a business, it must be accessible and communicated efficiently as far as the reach of business. And the IT support fro this must be nimble, flexible and cost-effective. This is the opportunity for today's software vendors.
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