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by Joshua Greenbaum, Contributing Editor   | Abstract: | As SAP launches an on-demand ERP offering into the mid-market, a look at precedents may indicate whether that market is even interested. |
With the recent focus on SAP's new mid-market, on-demand ERP offering, Business ByDesign, inquiring minds are wondering how well on-demand ERP can work for mid-market manufacturers. The question stems mostly from the fact that there's little precedent: The main on-demand contenders, Salesforce.com and Netsuite, don't support the manufacturing side of the business, though both sell on-demand to manufacturing customers. While it seems like a no-brainer that the main attributes of on-demand — no implementation costs, no ongoing maintenance and support infrastructure, no upgrades, etc. — will appeal to mid-market manufacturers, it's theoretical until proven in the market. As it turns out, one precedent for offering on-demand to mid-market manufacturers reveals the potential, as well as some of the pitfalls, that SAP and others will face. The company is Arena Software, and it offers a product lifecycle management (PLM) product for mid-market manufacturers. It's interesting that privately held Arena, still a relatively young company, can claim success in the PLM market; most of the companies that pioneered this market — Agile, UGS, MatrixOne, for example — have done quite poorly over the years and have been rolled up into much larger companies. [Click to continue] |