Report: How Microsoft Dynamics AX Stacks Up to Top Tier ERP

Yes, there are dozens of ERP companies from which to choose, but only four titans.

So finds Panorama Consulting which is releasing its Clash of the Titans 2015 Report this week (download required). Panorama's annual, subjective comparison of Tier 1 ERP vendors includes poll data from several hundred user companies, on such metrics as:

• Market share
• Rates of being short listed (and ultimately selected)
• Average time to implementation (planned vs. actual)
• Reasons for extended duration
• Payback period
• And perhaps most telling (or damning): ERP Success Rate. Do the customers consider the implementation a success or a failure?

"Tier 1" is of course an ambiguous term coined by industry analysts like Gartner and Forrester, based on everything from headcount to customer revenues. Titans earn their places given the size of their install bases and the size of customer organizations, plus flexibility and breadth of function. Until 2015, the report included just SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics among its Tier 1 titans, but this year added Infor.

The 2015 report took into account Dynamics AX installs plus some Dynamics NAV. Following are some findings related to Microsoft Dynamics, followed by interpretation by report author and Panorama Consulting Managing Partner Eric Kimberling, which he shared in both a webinar (requires registration) and in a Q&A with MSDynamicsWorld.com.

Microsoft's market share dipped from 11 to 9% between the 2014 and 2015 reports