The new way to sell ERP in a SAAS world

by Jeff Jedras

October 30, 2007 —

The glory days of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are over says
one analyst, adding in a Software as a Service (SAAS) world if partners are
going to be successful they need a new go to market approach.

Speaking at NetSuite Revolution, the annual partner conference for the San
Mateo, Calif.-based hosted ERP, CRM and e-commerce platform provider, Brian
Sommer said the late adopters and laggards are the only companies still buying
traditional licensed software. The analyst and CEO of Batavia, Ill.-based based
Tech Ventive said SAAS appeals to the early majority adopters, adding that's
where partners should play.

"The traditional market is definitely in decline, its the other markets
that are in ascendancy and that's where you need to be focusing,"said Sommer.

And if you're going to play there, he said, you're going to need to pitch your
solutions on something other than efficiency. Companies have already cut their
back office expenses to the bone. If a company is going to invest in a new ERP
solution or an upgrade, said Sommer, they're going to want to see real, concrete
business value.

"You can't keep going in there and automating things that have already
been automated again and again, they're not going to buy it," said Sommer.
"You've got to have a compelling value proposition."

In the Y2K era, when companies had a gun to their heads, Sommer said they had
little choice but to buy. Now, however, things have changed. Spending is more
discretionary, and total cost of ownership has been replaced by return on investment
as the compelling driving factor.

"You need to create vertical solutions because that's what they want,"said
Sommer.

Approaches like asking a client their top three challenges, or what keeps them
awake at night no longer work, said Sommer. Clients have become fatigued. Partners
need to become vertical experts and know the business challenges before pitching
a client. Stay away from playing the low cost game, but instead focus on speed
and time to value and showing business innovation knowledge, not just technical
knowledge.

"They will engage when you do the research and tell them what you see
as the challenges in their business, instead of just selling the product,"
said Sommer. "They want you to convince them that you're like the Maytag
repairman. You'll be there once in a while if something goes wrong, but otherwise
it will run reliably."

Some of NetSuite's major competitors in the ERP space include Microsoft, Sage
and SAP. Joe Santoro, founder and CEO of Toronto-based Synergy Plus Solutions,
a NetSuite and Sage partner, said Sage's AccPac software is very scaleable,
is a mature product, and its technically strong on the backed. Its success,
he said, has really come from its third party developer community.

"As AccPac grew-up the third-party development community wasn't able to
keep-up with the technical changes though, and that was a challenge,"said
Santoro. However, he added Sage is moving AccPac to a SAAS model and is rewriting
its GUI with AJAX, which will make AccPac a real challenger to NetSuite.

Another major challenger for NetSuite with its push into the mid market is
SAP. Alan Hardy, president of Tempe, Az.-based ERP Software Advisors,a NetSuite
and SAP partner, said he has been successful marketing SAP Business One in specific
targeted verticals, such as manufacturing. It's primarily an SMB product, said
Hardy, adding the key is to not let SAP demo the product for a potential client
as it has some very compelling features, and the issues don't become clear without
a good look under the hood.

"They practically give it away, they promise the world on development,
and then (they don't deliver)," said Hardy.

Before he became a NetSuite partner about a year ago David McGee, president
of Houston-based Scope Group, was a Microsoft Dynamics GP partner.The weak points
of Dynamics, said McGee, include the fact its portal is built on another platform,
which makes customization a much more challenging proposition then with NetSuite.
A lot of additional technical expertise is needed to bring in expertise like
CRM, and on demand capability requires Citrix terminal services.

Where Dynamics has the upper hand, said McGee, is in deals where it's financials
only, the focus is on field services or heavy manufacturing, or an empire-building
IT staff is in love with all things Microsoft. Conversely, NetSuite will shine
when CRM and/or e-commerce is in the deal, when the client has a limited IT
staff and is open to on demand, when heavy configuration is needed, when they
have a distributed workforce and when speed to implement is important.

ITBusiness.ca