The shift towards simplified and user-friendly solutions in ERP is driven by SMEs’ desire for standardization and ease of use, enabling them to focus on core business functionalities without the burden of complex systems or high upgrade costs.
The world is moving on, and so is technology. With the latest innovations surfacing across the ERP landscape, the inevitable question rises: Is there a need for reform? Many experts, be it researchers, vendors or users, enthusiastically agree, and propose a novel approach to enterprise management – and that is Composable ERP and SaaS, including within the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) space.
To learn why concepts of a Composable ERP and SaaS are not just hype-driven movements, but a step forward into more efficient and convenient ways of using enterprise technology, ERP Today sat down with Morgan Browne, CEO of Enterpryze, provider of business management solutions to SMEs with its own custom-built ERP solution.
Giacomo Lee (GL): You’ve been in the industry for around 25 years now. What’s changed in ERP technology since you started out?
Morgan Browne (MB): The first wave [back then] was to bring ERP to smaller businesses. […] Soon after SAP bought Business One and made it fit the SME space, we decided to build Enterpryze, which initially was an add-on for SAP Business One, to create a hybrid environment where you could have the power of the software and add on a cloud solution.
Now, it’s evolved to become its own ERP, which is built to enable smaller businesses to have that power that we’ve seen in SAP Business One. Bringing down the total cost of ownership, the cost of implementation, the cost of services to deploy, the cost of even running the thing has completely and utterly changed – and that to me is pretty exciting.
GL: How does the solution evolve on a regular basis? And how do you listen to your customers’ needs when it comes to updates?
MB: If I go back and look at what I call traditional ERP solutions, you get an upgrade maybe every year, maybe twice a year where somebody has to come along – a partner or a consultant – to do that upgrade for you. And not only is it expensive to do those upgrades, it’s disruptive to your business and it’s a real challenge.
Cloud has enabled us to deliver that monthly with no disruption. So, literally on the fourth of every month, we deliver an update that includes new features, security patches and engineering enhancements to improve speed and data management. We don’t even have to discuss [the update] and the beauty is that the customers directly feed into that roadmap. […] It’s being built as a community rather than as a vendor thinking or assuming what the customer needs next. And that’s very powerful.
One of the other things we looked at is, okay, there’s the ERP, right? And ERP is great, if you need it all. But what if you just wanted expenses or purchase scanning or invoice scanning or warehouse management? You can pick bits of your ERP and use those. You don’t have to go and replace everything. Now you can treat our ERP like any other platform rather than it being an all-encompassing ERP. So, I’m not calling it modular, but I’m saying that you can actually just use elements. You don’t have to use it all.
GL: How about the company itself? Where does it stand today size-wise – how large is your customer base?
MB: We have two and a half thousand customers and are growing at a significant rate. We grew out of the global financial crisis to become the biggest SAP Business One partner in the UK and Ireland, and we did that with innovation.
By innovating around SAP, we evolved into Enterpryze, which then evolved into an ERP solution. […] In terms of SAP Business One, we have a sister company called Milner Browne which is a SAP Business One partner that supports hundreds of customers throughout the UK already.
GL: You’ve mentioned your global reach. Are there particular regions where Enterpryze has more presence than others?
MB: South America and Southeast Asia have been very strong for us. We have offices in Malaysia and Vancouver that look after those two markets. [The product] is available in a multitude of languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Bahasa, Mandarin and with them, we [usually] look after retail, manufacturing, distribution and services as key areas.
GL: Let’s talk about those areas. What are SMEs’ needs right now? What’s changing in those different verticals?
MB: They’re obviously keen to build integrations into third-party logistics but really, there’s a huge appetite for simplicity and standardized processes. […] We’re changing on a more regular basis than ever before. How do we onboard users faster? How do we give them an experience that they’re familiar with? We don’t want big complex interfaces. I want something that steps that user through the process as efficiently as possible. Because historically, you bought these solutions and it was your responsibility to run and own them. Even if you had support, you still had to manage it, run it, upgrade it, put your time into it and host it.
[Today, users] don’t want to have to pay 10 grand every year for an upgrade. So what we did was we bundled everything into one simple SaaS price, and it’s whatever it is per user per month. Support, upgrades, hosting, security, the whole batch, all in one simple platform, and all I do is pay that money and consume the solution as I need it, just like I do with Apple TV.
GL: What’s your vision for Enterpryze’s future in five to ten years?
MB: There’s a huge opportunity for Enterpryze to democratize ERP. […] The market’s going to change massively in the next couple of years [because] there’s an enormous opportunity to help SMBs become more efficient, and I’d love to play a significant part in doing that.
We’re just beginning that journey now and I really see a scaling story happening here over the next number of years and beyond. […] The question is, how do we capitalize on that opportunity that’s been presented to us as the architecture, the technology and the customers’ requirements evolve and change?
As highlighted by Browne, this is an exciting time for SMEs. One way to uncover the much-needed treasure trove within the ERP world is to seek composable solutions that could be added to your ERP in the form of SaaS. If as an SME you’re finding yourself at the point of continuous complexity, perhaps it is time to consider how integration and composability could enhance your business’s efficiency and profitability.
