Is ERP a commodity?
Every now and then, we hear someone say, “ERP is a commodity”. We try to be polite but we can’t help but thinking, “What planet are they from?”
A commodity is a product that is undifferentiated. You can buy the same product from a variety of different sellers. The only difference is price and service – which has to do with the seller, not the product.
So, is ERP a commodity? Perhaps at the highest level. After all, we can all do the order-to-cash process. But dig down a layer or two and you’ll find substantial differences. For instance, it’s going to be hard to run a hospital if your software can’t do par and cycle counting. It’s hard to run a clothing manufacturer without software that supports a complex matrix of size/color/style. You can’t run a government agency without encumbrance accounting. (Well, you could but you might wind up in jail). Your dairy will have poor customer satisfaction if you don’t have a yield optimizer. You could pay hefty pollution fines if you don’t have a good environmental dashboard.
You may have noticed that we picked examples of business functions that Lawson does and many of our competitors don’t do (or don’t do as well, in our humble opinion). We suspect that maybe, just maybe, they can do a few things better than we can. And that’s the point – ERP is not a commodity.
But let’s say you continue to believe that ERP is a commodity. Then have we got a deal for you. If it truly is a commodity, you should buy on price or service. There’s no need for an exhaustive six-month selection process. There’s already ample evidence that we’re the TCO leader in ERP – so you can buy us on price. If that’s not enough, there’s also emerging evidence that our customers have a better experience. So you can buy us for better service. Just send us some money. We’ll send you some software. Now that’s simple.
As its name implies, The Lawson Opinionizer offers opinions. We believe we've got our facts straight but we don't guarantee it. A new Opinionizer appears every Monday. If you have an opinion, send an e-mail to Opinionizer@lawson.com
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