Enterprise Resource Planning software is the unglamorous linchpin of most business processes, tying together sales, marketing, finance, planning, register, and HR. The best ERP software tools deliver real intelligence to back office processes, and, as cloud offerings mature, vendors are increasingly taking real advantage of the flexibility and scalability of cloud platforms to add difficult new function.
Here is how Nucleus Research ranks the best ERP software vendors in its 2018 ERP know-how Value Matrix, published this week. Prices vary significantly according to enterprise requirements, and whether you choose a SaaS, private cloud subscription or the Private Perpetual License with an annual continuance fee that some providers offer.
Nucleus says: The vendor continues to lead the way in usability. With triple-digit growth, Acumatica has aggressively expanded its partner ecosystem to meet the needs of a diverse patron base, adding over 60 new value-added resellers in the last year.
High usability and flexibility are at the center of Acumatica’s development philosophy and the vendor is looking to automate processes that it already delivers, such as with multi-entity accounting when making the expenditure to multiple locations.
Nucleus says: Deltek’s development team has continued to produce a stream of improvements to its existing solutions.
On the innovation frontage, Deltek has invested in several technologies that customers are using today, including mobile functionality with Deltek Touch, integrated social capabilities that reduce the need for email, and data and key performance indicator (KPI) visualizations and dashboards that supply visibility across organizational silos.
Nucleus says: Infor offers its products as SaaS, hybrid deployment, or on premises, with the capability to scale up to serve global enterprises operating on multi- or single-tenant instances. Infor delivers an end-to-end solution suite with the litheness for extensibility to cover the last-mile functionality that customers require.
After acquiring a leading analytics and business intelligence vendor in Birst, Infor is inserting the capabilities into its technology stack as a BI platform in order to eliminate many of the data siloes that enterprise customers have. Infor delivers a suite of technologies [and] is pushing forward AI with its digital assistant technology.
Nucleus says: In its Spring 2018 release, Microsoft provided improvements in analytics, data integration, extensibility and customization, supply chain optimization, and compliance. Microsoft’s value scheme stems in part from the integrations it provides with other products in its ecosystem, including field service, project service automation, retail, sales, talent, and customer service.”
Imbuing its applications with intelligent technologies such as AI has been a theme for Microsoft in recent releases, as the vendor seeks to improve efficiency and efficiency by having the system make intelligent recommendations.
Nucleus said: Oracle addresses all parts of the enterprise, covering financials, accounting, project economic management, revenue management, project management, procurement, analytics, supply chain, and risk management.