Remain Agile and Move Forward

About this issue

Agility starts with the business problem

How can enterprise systems help organizations respond when decisions and work no longer stay within office walls? The November 2021 edition of ERP News Magazine explores mobile ERP as part of a broader discussion about business agility. Interviews, practical articles and industry announcements connect accessible information with operational continuity, employee experience and software selection. The emphasis is on identifying useful capabilities and understanding how they fit real processes.

Executive perspectives on adaptable enterprise software

Cover interview guest Nicky Tozer, Senior Vice President of EMEA at Oracle NetSuite, argues for starting ERP decisions with business outcomes. Financial visibility, inventory, supply chains and customer information provide more useful reference points than technology alone. Her discussion connects SuiteBanking, initially with HSBC, NetSuite Analytics Warehouse and Advanced Customer Support playbooks with evolving customer needs. Artificial intelligence and machine learning should resolve practical problems without adding unnecessary complexity. Tozer also discusses growth and the importance of women in technology leadership.

Claus Jepsen, Chief Technology Officer at Unit4, approaches future readiness through people-centric software. Distributed working increases the importance of collaboration, accessible services and systems that employees can adapt. He describes an open, extensible platform, APIs and low-code or no-code approaches alongside mobile timesheets, expenses and approvals. His outlook for 2022 includes greater SaaS adoption and industry-specific templates; these are expectations expressed at publication, rather than evidence of universal implementation.

Derk Bleeker, Chief Strategy and Development Officer at Sage, discusses the acquisition of GoProposal and the role of accountants in smaller businesses' digital development. Proposal management and the removal of administrative friction sit within a wider strategy for connected services. He also points to intelligent capabilities in Sage Intacct. Wider portfolio integration is discussed as a direction, while trusted accounting relationships remain central to helping customers prepare for change.

The canias4.0 interview presents IAS's integrated approach to industrial software. ERP, IoT, analytics, cloud services, the iasDB database and TROIA development platform form a common technology proposition. The discussion stresses connecting production equipment with business systems and providing modular options for SMEs. Further AI development and international expansion are stated priorities, rather than completed customer results.

Mobile ERP across offices, factories and field work

Chenthil Eswaran of Aspire Systems examines what makes an enterprise application suitable for mobile work beyond simply displaying it on a smaller screen. Access to timely data, useful workflows and implementation choices matter alongside connectivity, security, customization and training. InCloud Solutions' Lucy Thorpe likewise considers how employees create, access and share information through apps or browsers. Approvals, sales activity, dashboards and reduced duplicate entry illustrate the operational possibilities.

Allan Lessing, Director of Customer Solutions at OptiProERP, brings the discussion to manufacturing. Mobile access can support shop-floor instructions, material transactions, defect recording, barcode-based warehouse work and customer-facing activity. His article also addresses lost devices, compatibility, network availability and changes to working practices. These implementation demands qualify the benefits described; mobile functionality alone does not establish successful adoption.

Michael Grace examines mobile ERP through employee access and process redesign, including HR self-service. Training, participation and workflows suited to mobile use remain necessary. Nishant Joshi of Sage Software Solutions discusses information silos, digital documents and reporting across locations, languages and currencies. The article's absolute security language should be understood as the contributor's assertion, rather than a guarantee that any ERP system is immune to compromise.

Evaluation, automation and customer relationships

Chris Devault of QAD continues the ERP selection series with solution evaluation. A broad candidate list should narrow through demonstrations of representative user workflows, industry fit, integration requirements and vendor viability. The article distinguishes core requirements from advanced scheduling or planning capabilities and emphasizes relationships and support. Attractive demonstrations and promised future functionality are insufficient substitutes for examining how a system would actually be used.

In a second contribution, Eswaran explores accounts payable automation through RPA, AI, integration and invoice matching. The discussion distinguishes redesigning and automating work from simply transferring it elsewhere. Michael Augello's customer-retention article connects Acumatica ERP and CRM with shared records, case management and earlier recognition of service problems. Its fencing-supplier scenario is illustrative, rather than a named customer implementation with measured retention improvements.

Customer experience and industry developments

Scuderia AlphaTauri's expanded Epicor relationship provides a manufacturing example. Epicor Kinetic supports production, inventory, testing and finance in an environment that requires component traceability and detailed vehicle configurations. Serialized race snapshots and historical configuration records connect engineering decisions with operational information. The announcement describes capabilities and partnership scope without quantifying ERP-driven race performance gains.

Eczacıbaşı Building Products appears in SAP's announcement about SAP Sales Cloud integration with Microsoft Teams. IT manager Gamze Senkal describes accessing customer information and updating records within collaboration workflows, reducing the need for duplicate entry. This is qualitative customer testimony, rather than a published financial return calculation.

News coverage also includes Oracle's position in the 2021 Gartner cloud HCM assessment and SAP's recognition in the 2021 procure-to-pay assessment. Codeless Platforms announces ROISystems Group's partnership around BPA Platform and integration opportunities for SYSPRO customers. Prophix's acquisition of Sigma Conso adds consolidation expertise and geographic reach, with product integration described as eventual. An Infor-associated healthcare article closes the editorial coverage by examining payment, platforming and personalization as drivers of digital and virtual care. Together, the contributions connect enterprise agility with information access, practical process design and careful evaluation of claims.