HFS Highlight: Unit4 “shifts ERP from an application to a platform for delivering business value”

We’re absolutely thrilled to announce that HFS have featured ERPx in a recent Highlight publication. They provide an interesting perspective on our next-gen solution as a key element in solving the challenges presented by both legacy ERP and the “management by spreadsheet” problem.

This short report covers everything from legacy ERP’s inflexibility, and how its heritage in manufacturing and fixed resource planning makes it inadequate for the needs of service-based and people-focused organizations. To how this has created a dearth of actionable data for these organizations, and how this has left many feeling their ERP investment is nothing more than a glorified AP/RP solution.

To contrast, the report praises ERPx for its ability to help organizations harness the value of their human capital, plan projects, and facilitate service delivery.

ERPx: a “potential game-changer to enable sustainable business value”

The analyst identifies a principal issue arising from the rapid migration of services to the cloud – more devices and more apps create more data. But this data is only valuable if the right people have the ability to contextualize it in order to synthesize the insights needed to make better decisions, and to perform tasks more efficiently.

ERPx provides a unique solution to this problem that is almost unique amongst ERP vendors. ERPx dispenses with the traditional reliance on APIs, middleware, and resource-heavy customized architecture and relies entirely on microservices to provide core functional tools.

This approach means that ERPx is infinitely extensible, and infinitely integratable. As the report says, “With ERPx, business users can team with, create, or co-develop mini-applications outside the core application and its data.” This not only streamlines deployment, maintains the integrity of the core solution (and its access and security controls), and provides a foundation for continuous innovation.

ERPx fully embraces the HFS Triple-A-Trifecta

ERPx equips organizations with the ability to deploy a truly people-centric system of record. One that unifies back office processes across finance, HR, project management, and resourcing – and which can be scaled precisely to suit evolving business needs. It makes extensive use of AI capability and low-code app development environments to allow your people to both analyze data more easily, and automate many of their day-to-day low value workflows while identifying new areas for innovation.

These features – according to HFS – make ERPx a perfect suite of tools for emerging change agents to transform business operations within their organization. Meeting the criteria for the “Triple-A-Trifecta” of Automation, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence.

ERPx: enterprise technology for human-focused organizations

We’re pleased that HFS has highlighted that our solutions are tailor-made for verticals that derive most of their value from the expertise of their people. And who value the ability to plan and deliver project-based work on often tight timelines and within rigidly defined budgets.

HFS also note the potential for ERPx to become a driver for transformation well beyond back office functions. Because ERPx allows everyone in every department to access and customize data and insight portals and reports at the user level, teams well beyond IT and finance can independently create microservice apps to analyze data relevant to their own remits. This not only means fewer tickets for back office teams to process and an end to complex change order workflows, and the ability to derive insight without onboarding further tech – it means that the whole organization can more easily become truly data driven.

An expanding partner ecosystem, accelerated development, and thriving co-development community

The report also notes that ERPx has a bright future thanks to recent big changes at Unit4. We were recently acquired in a private equity buyout by TA Associates – bringing a huge infusion or resources and funding that’s allowing us to accelerate development on ERPx – giving us a unique position as first movers in the next-gen ERP landscape. We can therefore provide our customers with a much-extended partner network, a product that’s more advanced than most other solutions on the market, and the ability to start bringing real value to their organizations and their own customers much faster.

The bottom line

We think it’s best to give HFS the last word here:

Unit4’s ERPx is a compelling platform with the potential to support long-term digital transformations for mid-size enterprises in people centric industries.

Which is exactly what we set out to do.