UNIT4, the ERP vendor which owns Agresso and CODA has unveiled a new strategy for ERP upgrades that it hopes will keep it ahead of traditional ERP approaches. Dubbed ‘Route 66’, it incorporates a series of Agresso Business World releases over the next two years, developed to enable clients to ‘pick and mix’ which releases (or ‘milestones’) and which modules they want to take. This says UNIT4 lets them benefit from new user experiences, technologies and delivery options to suit them, when they want, rather than the big-bang, ‘all or nothing’ approach of traditional ERP upgrades. The aim is to enable customers to evolve at their own pace, while protecting their investment.
The announcement is part of UNIT4’s continuing strategy built upon ease of change. The supplier’s applications have established a reputation for being particularly flexible to change without involving teams of consultants and specialists. FSN has written on a number of occasions about the supplier’s architecture which predisposes its offering to change. The Route 66 strategy takes this a stage further and could be a significant market differentiator.
“This breakthrough approach to product releases and upgrades will again put ‘Big ERP’ vendors like Oracle and SAP at a competitive disadvantage against UNIT4’s long-term low cost of ownership and do-it-yourself change capabilities,” said Anwen Robinson, Managing Director, UNIT4 Business software Ltd.
“Through economic necessity, the ERP buyer community has become much more educated about the architectural and technological drivers underpinning enterprise software. Businesses no longer automatically default to one of the Big ERP giants based on initial deployment costs or a perceived mega-spectrum of capabilities from one source. CIOs and CFOs in particular have been repeatedly burned by solutions that over time have locked them into spending millions over budget to support unanticipated business change.”
