More Cloud, More Customization, More Lawsuits in ERP’s Future, Predicts Panorama

Predicting the future of ERP can be tricky, but Panorama Consulting fearlessly unveiled its Top 10 Predictions for the ERP Industry in 2016 in both a blog post and a webinar hosted by Panorama Director January Paulk.

Some will sound familiar to CIOs who follow the sector, including a blurring of lines between Tier 1 solutions and lower-tier players. Some contain cautions and/or opportunities for companies and vendors as customization gains popularity and flexibility becomes more desirable. Here are the predictions, upon which Panorama President and Consulting Managing Partner Eric Kimberling elaborated for us. 

Classification of Tier 1 systems will become obsolete.

The abundance of sophisticated options now available means that ERP titans like SAP and Oracle are no longer the only packages capable of addressing the needs of large corporations, according to Paulk.

As we reported in October, Panorama views Tier 1 as an ambiguous term coined by industry analysts, based on everything from headcount to customer revenues. Panorama for its annual Clash of the Titans report on the Tier 1 competitive landscape chooses its titans based on the size of their install bases; the size of customer organizations; flexibility, and breadth of function. Until 2015, the report included just SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics, but this year added Infor. Perhaps in 2016, the titans will include one or more of the traditionally Tier 2 companies with broad reach and breadth of solutions like Sage, IFS and Epicor.

Adoption of ERP by small and mid-sized organizations will increase.

SaaS and mobile technologies are becoming more cost effective and ...