Extending the scope of your ERP Software

The best-of-breed market has evolved because standalone ERP software cannot fulfil all the organisation's needs. Customers know the issue of having their ERP customised, leads to costly future upgrades, and also it doesn't give customers as much flexibility from being supported by another ERP partner if needed. On so many occasions I have seen customers on old versions of their ERP software, because of the inability to upgrade due to their customisation's. Customers should be asking their ERP partner, if you complete this customisation will this allow me to smoothly upgrade in the future and hold the ERP Partner accountable.

Best-of-breed software use API's which are supported by the ERP Vendor for scalability and not written by an ERP partner. These APIs are now RESTful API's and have road maps. Best-of-breed software such as our Warehouse Management Solution and Transport Management Solution allows customers to have direct support with the software developer and have system longevity. There are no issues of customers not being able to upgrade.

The next part to this when choosing Best-of-breed Add On's for your ERP software, customers should look into which other ERP's the solution has integrated with. With growth comes complexity. Normally the next ERP software the business purchases is a lot more complex and has a lot more options with configuration and API's. Does the Best-of-Breed software you select have experience with the next ERP software you are looking into? This is a definite question customers need to ask. There is no more alignment with brands of ERP vendors and nor should there be. If a customer is using Sage today, they may be using SAP tomorrow, and if a customer is using MYOB today they may be using Oracle tomorrow.

When looking at Best-of-Breed software to extend your ERP software, you should be asking about their experience in the industry. Does the best-of-breed software have similar customers to your industry? Do know how to support complexity? The RIC Group becomes a supply chain partner for our customers. We have been deploying and supporting supply chain solutions for over 20 years, and customers have absolute confidence that we can support them and their growth.