Trends 2011: ERP Customers Demand Better Flexibility, Cost Transparency, And Mobility

Enterprise applications for running your business (i.e., ERP) are evolving rapidly to enable more flexibility, better user experiences, and new deployment options offering more predictable long-term costs of ownership. Most enterprise resource planning (ERP) software customers, however, may not take advantage of the latest product innovations in 2011 due to limited IT budgets and daunting upgrade project costs. One-fourth (25%) of our 900-plus survey respondents indicated plans to invest in their existing ERP systems in 2011, versus 29% in 2010. Ownership cost transparency now drives increasing interest in various cloud-based deployment models, but SaaS offerings in the ERP solutions market still lag well behind customer relationship management (CRM) and human resource management (HRM).