Why Do Companies Switch to a New ERP in 2023?

About this issue

Making the case for ERP change

When does an enterprise system stop supporting growth and start restricting it? ERP News Magazine Issue 37, June 2023, examines why companies switch to a new ERP. Manual work, fragmented information, limited traceability and changing business models recur throughout the issue. Its interviews, contributed analysis and customer accounts connect replacement decisions with operational fit, implementation ownership and the capacity to keep adapting after go-live.

Executive perspectives on finance, industry fit and assets

Alok Ajmera, President and CEO of Prophix, discusses a survey of more than 700 finance leaders. Planning, forecasting, consolidation and automation are central to his view of a more advisory finance function. Skills and training remain obstacles, while planned investment and anticipated automation should be distinguished from completed transformation. Ajmera argues that integrated financial performance management can help teams redirect effort toward business insight.

Matthew Gordon-Box, Product Manager Supply Chain at SYSPRO, connects manufacturing and distribution expertise with better requirements discovery. He discusses SYSPRO 8's Embedded Analytics and Low Code Application Designer, alongside inventory, traceability and planning capabilities. His selection advice emphasizes partner knowledge, realistic demonstrations and customer ownership. The central question is whether the provider understands the business sufficiently to improve its processes.

Syed Ali, CEO and Founder of EZO, explains the company's evolution from EZ Web Enterprises and its asset-centered approach to operations. AssetSonar, EZOfficeInventory, EZO CMMS and EZRentOut address related but distinct needs. An embedded example describes St. Francis school district tracking approximately 4,000 devices. Ali links asset visibility with preventive maintenance, scheduling and informed investment, while recommending attention to usability, scalability and support.

Choosing a platform and preparing the organization

Gabe Mensching, Chief Technology Officer at NIMBL, reviews RISE with SAP through infrastructure responsibility, total cost of ownership and migration considerations. He notes that database sizing affects the economics of a move. Mike Guay, Vice President Customer Success at Infor, argues that replacement should follow a documented five- to ten-year strategy. He treats a move to a substantially different SaaS product as reimplementation, even when the vendor remains the same.

ERP News Associate Editor Katie Slimov contributes two comparisons of generic and industry-specific ERP, covering functionality, compliance, flexibility, cost and implementation tradeoffs. Abas adds five selection priorities and an integration article grounded in pandemic-era supply chain disruption. These pieces reinforce the importance of evaluating both the software and the people delivering it.

David Appel, Head of the SaaS Vertical at Sage, considers remote finance through shared data, automated approvals, billing and reporting. Avalara writer Dawn Moser examines governmental business-license compliance during mergers and acquisitions. Rootstock reviews ten manufacturing inventory requirements, including barcode capture, lot tracking, BOMs and connected supplier information. Aptean considers advanced routing for third-party logistics, while Unit4 examines CFO priorities and QAD discusses procurement resilience with Henry Schein's Kenneth Zins.

Customer stories: retail, service and manufacturing

Steeda Autosports replaces on-premises systems with NetSuite to connect finance, inventory, orders, retail and ecommerce. Automated management reporting saves time, while further website and live-inventory improvements remain planned. The story links operational visibility with a business responding to increased demand for automotive performance parts.

Enercare selects IFS Cloud for Service Management and Planning and Scheduling Optimization to replace software approaching end of life. Gogh Solutions is named as implementation partner. Technician mobility, scheduling and dispatch improvements are expected benefits of the selected solution; the announcement does not report completed deployment results.

Enjet Aero standardizes acquired manufacturing businesses on cloud-based Epicor Kinetic. Shared processes and data improve cross-site coordination and financial visibility. Its latest acquired company reportedly goes fully live within 90 days of acquisition closing. The ability to establish a company in the system within two days describes a narrower setup task, rather than a complete rollout.

Clarins UK deploys Infor WMS for a new distribution center, with Supply Chain Consulting Group supporting selection. The customer reports delivery ahead of deadline and under budget, improved inventory traceability and shorter operative onboarding. These are reported operational gains without a published percentage improvement.

Fink's Jewelers consolidates financials, inventory, orders, point of sale and ecommerce on NetSuite. Logging new product lines falls from several days to a few hours. Future CRM and regional expansion plans remain separate from this achieved administrative improvement.

Anton Debatin GmbH describes a long-running abas ERP environment supporting a continuous process chain. Its original implementation began operation in 2002 without reported downtime in production, shipping or goods receipt. Future multisite connections and broader subsidiary use are presented as plans within this historical account.

Guillevin International combines Epicor Prophet 21, EDI and enterprise content management to support distribution growth. It reports EDI integration arriving six to eight weeks early. Broader supplier migration, centralized payables and warehouse management form part of an ongoing program, with further efficiency gains still anticipated.

The Other Face KSA uses Odoo for a Saudi concept store's point of sale, inventory, invoicing and accounting. Gift cards, loyalty features and integrated financial records support a small retail team. The account describes connected workflows without a quantified revenue or productivity result.

MEIKO uses abas ERP, mobile applications and shared infrastructure to connect headquarters and international operations. The story describes staged rollouts, reusable implementation preparation and centralized master data. Its “MEIKO Cloud” is a company-managed infrastructure arrangement; future country deployments should not be read as completed milestones.

E&A Scheer goes live with Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage to support recipe management, planning, inventory and distribution. The rum blender and trader selects standardized industry capabilities for its international supply chain. The story confirms implementation but gives no measured cost-saving rate.

SNF Oman digitizes employee planning, projects, timesheets, expenses and leave with Odoo. Defined access rights and approval flows replace paper and spreadsheet processes. Accounting, Inventory and Sales are identified as later additions, while the reported time and resource savings remain unquantified.

Industry developments and platform direction

News covers Nulogy's CAD 20 million funding package, Unit4's customer momentum and App Studio availability, SAP and IBM's AI collaboration, and SYSPRO's analyst coverage for Embedded Analytics. Epicor announces plans for an Indian data center, while IFS reports Q1 2023 growth. Avalara supports eBay International Shipping, Rootstock introduces Enterprise Insights, Aptean reports distinct process and discrete MES assessments, and Sage presents its MLB campaign with Cal Ripken Jr.

Across these developments, replacement is framed as a business decision involving capabilities, relationships and sustained organizational change. The customer stories show several paths: new selection, phased rollout, long-term extension and platform consolidation. Their differing stages matter as much as the technologies chosen.