ERP systems are hardly an impulse purchase. Despite all of the value they deliver to businesses looking to improve the way they work, there’s a lot to consider from the upfront implementation and licensing fees to the ongoing support costs.
But can you guess what the most overlooked cost of an ERP system is?
According to Guus Krabbenborg, co-founder of QBS, it’s the cost of your next ERP system. Here’s what he has to say about it:
To get a handle on this challenge, it can be instructive to turn the clock back some 10 years. Can you remember the exact state of technology in 2006? No one had ever heard of tablets back then. Let alone the verb ‘swiping’! WhatsApp didn’t even exist at that point. Google was a relatively unknown company. And cloud technology was in its infancy.
Perhaps this comparison provides you a bit of perspective into what we can expect in terms of new developments in the coming 10 years. But far more importantly – can you comprehend what all this means for your potential ERP suppliers?
Consider the required competencies, for example; or the required R&D budgets, the availability of international sales channels or the necessary entrepreneurship and decisiveness, of course.
If you think about the future of ERP technology, you come to the conclusion that you are selecting more of an ERP concept these days than an ERP solution – a concept that is developing at a furious pace. And which must develop! Because vendors that fall behind or miss the boat at any time are quickly lost in this market. And the most painful bit: their clients are lost, too.
With the rapidly evolving pace of technology, his reasoning makes sense — the world we live in now won’t be the same 5-10 years from now. Investing time & resources into a system (and supplier) that can’t evolve and be relevant a few years from now is likely to take you down a costly road.
Read Guus’ original article on QBS here and let us know what you think in the comments!
