ERP Applications 2008: The Battle Goes Vertical

The enterprise resource planning (ERP) market continues to mature at the upper end as the two titans — Oracle and SAP — look to extend their footprints in multinational enterprises. Industry functionality is becoming paramount for success in the ERP market, a trend that has driven Oracle's application acquisitions of late. SAP, meanwhile, is banking its future growth on small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) as it works to solidify its subscription offering. These giants control more than half the market, but other vendors — including Agresso, Epicor Software, Infor, Lawson Software, Microsoft, and The Sage Group — are performing well using a variety of approaches to achieve differentiation. The ERP applications market, currently about $38 billion in total revenue, is growing at an annual rate of 6.9% and will reach $50 billion by 2012. Business process and applications professionals should build on ERP as the backbone transactional system of record, supplementing with best-of-breed process solutions and industry-specific applications where appropriate.