UNIT4, announced plans last week to “disrupt” the performance management software market in 2012 with a completely new approach to delivering business analytics tools for the enterprise. UNIT4 Business Analytics Apps - says the vendor which is known for its Agresso and CODA brands - are turnkey, rapidly deployed, business performance solutions available on a pay-as-you-use basis from a dedicated app store.
“Today’s enterprise performance management (EPM) or corporate performance management (CPM) solutions have been as costly and complex as legacy ERP,” said Ton Dobbe, Vice president, Product Marketing for UNIT4. “Having spent millions on these systems over numerous years, companies are still struggling to get meaningful information out as their business requirements have changed since installing the ERP, but the task of making the changes to the system has proven too complex. As a result, their business analytics is too often out of date and lacking any meaningful insight. UNIT4 has led the way in low cost of change ERP and is bringing this much needed foresight to the performance management space.”
Customers will be able to download a pre-built solution from the app store that is virtually ready to use, then choose if they want to add tailoring to the solution themselves -- or select a turnkey professional services bundle of five, 10 or 20 days, depending on their requirements, that guarantees completion. Per user/per month pricing ensures that UNIT4’s approach is low-cost, no-risk, customisable and easy to change. This contrasts with the usual huge up-front investment and months it takes to deploy traditional performance management solutions, plus the financial and time investment required to make subsequent changes.
In March 2012, the first apps will be rolled-out via a selective customer review programme. From June, these solutions will be made available globally via the UNIT4 App Store along with apps designed for various service intensive markets such as local government, education, not for profit and professional services. Cloud advancements will ultimately provide a standardised environment for cloud cube analytics.
