Unit4 named a Major Player in IDC MarketScape ERP vendor analysis

The latest IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Medium-Sized/Midmarket Business ERP Applications 2020 Vendor Assessment has named Unit4 a Major Player. Recognizing our ERP platform for its straightforward, streamlined user experience and customizability, our recent innovations and future roadmap, and our excellent track record for customer support.

The assessment highlights a variety of unique challenges for midmarket companies (firms with 100-999 employees in North America and Japan, and 100-499 in the rest of the world.) These challenges create a highly specific market for ERP software which is increasingly well-served, with several highly competitive options. All of which are innovating and evolving even further to increase their resilience and flexibility in the face of current global complexities.

Our position as a Major Player reflects our continued commitment to creating better people experiences for our customers and those who work for them, and our ongoing innovation of our platform to meet the changing needs of people-centric businesses.

The drive to digitization

COVID-19 has turned business’ need to rethink the way they structure their operations from a distant hypothetical into an immediate reality. Widespread remote working, hybrid digital/physical order filling, and new models of distribution are transforming cloud and SaaS from an alternative to on-premise into operational essentials.

This ultimately means that the criteria governing ERP selection are almost completely different now compared to just a few years ago. With choices based less on feature laundry lists, and more on flexibility, capacity to automate, and simple, efficient user experiences.

According to this report, the big trends currently influencing selection are:

• Evolving business models, with subscription-based pricing rapidly becoming the norm, and hybrid SaaS/Cloud and on-prem options being more and more widely available.
• Changing deployment models, with most vendors working hard to make their cloud offerings more functional, support higher-quality SLAs, and deploy an ever-increasing number of microservices.
• Workflow convergence as siloed operational functions like procurement, inventory management, finance, and project management are finally becoming more easily integrateable.
• The emergence of fully-digital businesses as companies strive to eliminate old inefficiencies and to harness new technologies to create better ways of working.

Helping the midmarket navigate its challenges

The key challenge for the midmarket lies in their size. They have much of the operational complexity of their larger counterparts, but without the bigger players’ resources.

This makes managing the status quo more difficult – but it also makes navigating the increased complexity that inevitably accompanies growth more difficult. To help address this hurdle, the IDC MarketScape recommends choosing ERP software that meets some or all of the following criteria:

• A greater focus on vertical markets
• More emphasis on ecosystem
• Better user experience
• Desire for a trusted brand
• Superior features and functionality
• More agility through collaboration
• Demand for greater process controls

Unit4 meets all of these criteria, making us a Major Player in this segment. We have a specific focus on four major verticals (defined by their people-centric natures), we’ve created a system that allows users to integrate their entire operational matrix (and reap the benefits of both easier collaboration and greater process control), we’ve been around for a long time and have proven credentials with hundreds of clients.

And we’ve been recognized in particular in this assessment for our streamlined, no-nonsense UX, our commitment to innovations that make ecosystems more connected, collaboration more meaningful, and which create ever better features. And for our customer support – which only helps to reinforce our vertical market strengths. It’s this blend of current capabilities and alignment to the evolving strategic priorities of our customers that contribute to our Major Player status.