Unit4 is the ERP vendor of choice for mid-market service-centric organizations 

The 2022 Constellation Report is out, and here we give you a bitesize look at the insights on offer and key takeaways.   

Organizations are now seeking greater flexibility and more automation in their enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. Business leaders need to access data easily, enable self-service capabilities, and intelligently automate processes. The most common requirements are analytics, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) to enable digital transformation. The choice of solution providers remains slim, based on company size, industry vertical, and technology stack.   

Market Trends   

Service-centric organizations using legacy on-premise ERP systems face massive challenges in balancing low-quality software design decisions and short-term business requirements.   

As digital transformation strategies evolve, Constellation believes choosing a vendor you can trust will be the most important decision you can make. In Constellation’s ERP conversations with more than 300 technology leaders over the past nine months, 10 significant trends have emerged for 2022 and beyond:  

1. Reduction in cost of ownership 

Executives are seeking to consolidate vendors, modernize systems, and reduce the cost of ownership.    

2. Regulatory relief as a service   

ERP providers (and AI) keep users up to date on regulations, compliance requirements, and legislative burdens.  

3. Digital monetization models   

New models enable post-sale revenue opportunities such as installation, warranty, and vendor-managed inventory. Subscriptions also require regulatory compliance for revenue recognition rules such as ASC 606.   

4. Collapsing value chains  

Classic mega processes such as invoice to close, procure to pay, hire to retire, and order to cash have crossed functional domains, and the convergence of these mega processes makes way for multiparty value chains.   

5. Journey orchestration   

ERP users expect to design, execute, and automate end-to-end business processes. Organizations would like to be able to orchestrate external and internal processes and enable key business leaders to craft their own cross-functional capabilities.   

6. Autonomous enterprises and AI   

Natural-language processing and video intelligence enable large quantities of unstructured data such as documents, chats, log files, and transactions to be ingested and organized into logical categories using techniques such as topological data analysis.   

7. Cloud ERP platforms   

Users need to extend and expand ERP footprints to accommodate changing business models and new requirements.   

8. Analytics first   

The ERP market landscape has shrunk from hundreds of vendors to a dozen core providers. With a refresh cycle ahead, customers have increased their expectations for obtaining both stability and innovation from one core vendor.   

9. Verticalization shifts to micro-verticalization and platform ecosystems

Customers expect their cloud-based ERP solution to deliver on deep industry-vertical functionality, and they need a platform that they can extend as well as one that is part of a larger ecosystem.   

10. Elastic pricing

Customers have become accustomed to cloud-based pricing models based on the number of users. As complexity in cloud products grows, customers expect to see flexible pricing models based on users, usage, and platforms.

 

In conversations with 351 executives in charge of ERP in 2022, Constellation reported that leaders indicated that their top six priorities for vendor selection include:   

• Support more automation and AI (86.32%)  

• Reduce the cost of ownership and complexity (82.62%)   

• Deliver self-service business intelligence (BI) and reporting (72.65%)  

• Meet new regulatory requirements (65.81%)  

• Address integration with existing investments (63.82%)  

• Improve industry functionality (53.85%)   

What the Constellation Report had to say about Unit4  

“Unit4 launched its cloud deployment option in 2013. With 6,000 global customers and 2,500 Unit4 ERP customers, the vendor provides a full suite of services-centric ERP offerings in on-premise, hosted, and cloud-based deployments.   

Unit4’s midmarket customer base ranges in size from $100 million to $1 billion in revenue and between 250 and 10,000 employees. Unit4 delivers a full ERP suite of financial management; human resources and payroll; planning, budgeting, and forecasting; procurement management; project management; and EAM services-centric offerings. The company releases two major updates a year.   

The focus on a people-centric approach aligns with the vendor’s key industries: professional services—including sub-verticals such as management consulting, architecture, engineering and construction, IT and software consulting, higher education, public sector, and nonprofits.   

Themes for the 2022 roadmap and beyond reflect customer requirements for customization at scale, end-to-end, and automation. Specific product goals include a focus on filling out industry- and country-specific requirements, continued investment in finance and procurement, and broader and deeper expertise in professional services industries. As part of Unit4’s push into the U.S. market, the vendor has doubled down on investments in HCM. On the financial planning and analysis side, Unit4 has made it easier for customers to integrate with its core ERP capabilities.   

Customers tend to select Unit4 ERP for its deep vertical expertise in services-centric businesses, midmarket focus, and people-centered design philosophy.”  

 

As you can see, Unit4 is the only vendor perfectly positioned for mid-market service-centric organizations and has become the vendor of choice for this market over the last few years.   

How can Unit4 help your organization shine?  

With the right technology supporting you, your service-centric can focus on People Experience to help free your professionals to do more of what matters: attracting, supporting, and retaining clients.  

You can download the full report on Unit4 here. And you can check out Unit4's People Experience suite here.  

Our solutions support all types of service- and project-focused businesses around the world, offering unbeatable industry-specific knowledge and functionality, giving you the tools you need to outshine the competition.