SaaS ERP Three Horse Race

While there is no shortage of Enterprise Resource Planning software applications in the traditional on premise market, the on-demand ERP software market is proving otherwise. In part because ERP software giants Oracle, SAP, Infor and Lawson have chose to ignore, belittle, delay or challenge the ERP software as a service movement, several smaller start-ups have emerged as credible alternatives and garnered early market share in the process.

NetSuite, Intacct and Aplicor have each delivered impressive ERP software applications and gained early SaaS market share leadership positions. NetSuite completed a high profile IPO in December 2007. The company marketing spend is near $100M per year and this native SaaS provider seems to show aggressive client acquisition growth. However, the company also seems to incur alarmingly high client churn, however, chooses not to disclose exact figures. ERP provider Intacct's growth is more volatile but more recently is beginning to show consistency and traction. This heavily venture financed organization has seen four CEO's in the last four years, however, now seems to be catching its stride and both acquiring and retaining ERP software customers. ERP vendor Aplicor resembles that little train that could. With less publicity and marketing fanfare, the company keeps chugging along and in the process has earned a very impressive ERP client roster and the lowest customer churn in the ERP SaaS industry. Both NetSuite and Aplicor deliver full featured ERP suites which include accounting software, supply chain management, manufacturing software, human resources software and customer relationship management software. Intacct offers accounting and distribution software.

These early ERP SaaS providers are certain to be challenged in the near term. ERP heavyweight SAP has announced its entry into the ERP software as a service market, however, has failed to actually deliver an on-demand application and has most recently acknowledged its on-demand solutions will be late to market and scaled back. Oracle displays a near bi-polar corporate personality when it comes to the SaaS market, however, the company's M&A trend is undeniable and many industry insiders expect this software giant to buy its way into the market - quite possibly by acquiring Salesforce.com or NetSuite (a company with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison already owns two-thirds of). Whether the smaller and more nimble SaaS ERP vendors can stand off the challenges from SAP, Oracle, Infor or and other much larger traditional software companies may be based in large part on the challengers willingness to fully embrace the SaaS model as opposed to their current strategies of entering the SaaS market largely as a defensive tactic aimed at slowing the erosion of their existing client base.

Tags: Top SaaS ERP software systems, hosted ERP, on-demand enterprise resource planning systems