Wish that when finding an ERP system, you could get a basic idea of what options you’ll need before picking up the phone or typing out an email? While product feature sheets can go on for pages, they don’t always make it easy to plot what types of businesses are a good fit for the feature sets and design. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a chart that did that? Something that took out part of the frustration of starting this process? Luckily, once such chart exists.
Gartner technology research took leading Midmarket ERP software and ran them through impressive, rigorous methodologies. The long document really put these products through their paces and was able to classify the strengths based on an impressive checklist. What kind of criteria were considered? Companies that fell between $200 million and $2 billion in revenue, ERP systems that can take on multiple tasks and industry specific requirements like process or discrete manufacturing
You can see the results of the testing below in this quadrant style chart:
Midmarket ERP Quadrants
Obviously, this chart is a starting point. The specifics of your manufacturing and/or distribution business will ultimately determine what software will be the best fit. Really, the only way to figure that out is to start scheduling demos and finding a partner to help you implement, upgrade or replace a system. Ultimately, the success of an ERP product depends on more factors than features and more on how implementation, training and continued support takes shape.
In the report, some other Midmarket ERP systems that are worth taking a look at, but weren’t analyzed in their research, are as follows: Fujitsu Glovia, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and GP, Infor SyteLine and Visual, Oracle Fusion Applications, SAP Business ByDesign, Plex Online, NetSuite, Ramco Systems and Syspro.
About the Author: Al Galinot
