ERP Isn't Dead Yet - But Most Execs Are Planning the Wake (theregister.com)
- Reference: 0180615614
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/188250/erp-isnt-dead-yet---but-most-execs-are-planning-the-wake
- Source link: https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/19/erp_survey_rimini_street/
The research was commissioned by Rimini Street, a third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP. Despite the pessimism, 97% said their current systems met business requirements. Vendor lock-in remains a sore point: 35% cited limited flexibility and forced upgrades as frustrations. Kingfisher, operator of 2,000 European retail stores including Screwfix and B&Q, recently eschewed an SAP upgrade in favor of using third-party support to shift its existing application to the cloud. Gartner analyst Dixie John cautioned that while third-party support may work in the short or medium term, organizations will eventually need to upgrade.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/19/erp_survey_rimini_street/
ERP? (Score:4, Funny)
I saw the headline and was wondering how Effective Rated Power could be dying, and why execs would care.
could someone... (Score:5, Insightful)
translate this article into English, layman speak level. Pretend I'm 5 and don't know what the fuck an ERP is and why they will be dead.
Re: (Score:3)
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of business management software—typically a suite of integrated applications—that an organization can use to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities. - Wikipedia
Re:could someone... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, "enterprise resource planning", I think. Inventory, shipping, billing, scheduling, and tracking bundled up into one very expensive thing with a dated interface and enough complexity to be a pain to maintain. It'll be dead someday because of those things, and it will be replaced by something that looks better and is easier to use.
At least that's my best guess for the meaning of, " 36% expect ERP to give way to composable, API-driven best-of-breed systems, while 33% see the future in "agentic ERP" featuring autonomous AI-driven decision-making."
Re:could someone... (Score:4, Informative)
I'll provide a little more color commentary... ERP was born out of MRP, fashionable in the 70's and early 80's. Manufacturing Resource Planning was all about having the right inventory on hand to manufacture widgets to meet a delivery schedule. It had an inventory module, with screens for doing various inventory functions. It had a Bill of Materials function, which kept track of which smaller parts went into each bigger part, and which bigger parts when into the next bigger part, etc. Given that, and a target delivery schedule, it was possible to predict when to order the materials to meet the schedule. I've skipped over alot, but that was its essential function.
As time moved on, more modules were added, like Capacity Planning. Given enough information about a plant, it could predict when an intended target delivery schedule exceeded the plant's capacity to meet it. As more modules got piled in, marketing weenies rebranded the thing to "Enterprise Resource Planning". These beheamoths include personnel modules, contract modules, and scads more I don't know about.
These functions are essential to many businesses, so ditching ERP doesn't mean not doing those functions, it means doing them with different software.
Re: (Score:2)
> so ditching ERP doesn't mean not doing those functions, it means doing them with different software.
And getting all those disparate software packages all play nice with each other. Good luck! I wish these C-suite weenies the best of luck in their endeavor.
B&Q has the worst stock control (Score:2)
So many times I've gone to B&Q having looked online for an item promising me multiple of an item in stock in the store, to find nothing there at all. It is seriously poor compared to competitors, and so the opinion of Kingfisher about ERP systems should be summarily dismissed because of it.
Depends on how you define ERP. (Score:3)
ERP systems have been decomposing (software-wise) incrementally over the last 20-30 years. Look under the hood and you will find modules with API interfaces. What makes this transition interesting it creates potential opportunities for heterogeneous sources for the modules. You are no longer necessarily stuck with one software supplier for all your business functions.
Re: (Score:3)
> ERP systems have been decomposing (software-wise) incrementally over the last 20-30 years. Look under the hood and you will find modules with API interfaces. What makes this transition interesting it creates potential opportunities for heterogeneous sources for the modules. You are no longer necessarily stuck with one software supplier for all your business functions.
Spent 18 months evaluating half a dozen ERP systems. Came down to Oracle and another vendor building a more best-of-breed solution with proven APIs. The program manager and myself both recommended the latter. The CEO chose Oracle because of “one throat to choke”, referring to the “simplicity” of a single vendor. He literally wanted one software supplier.
Or so he assumed.
Reality turned into a clusterfuck of software left over from a dozen buyouts and acquisitions-by-force, pretend
Re: (Score:3)
I think this is far more of the issue. Oracle and SAP suck. There is nobody else in the space that really does top-to-bottom ERP, because it's not really something that the business units want. They are OK with data being siloed so that they can have local control and get the reporting they want, instead of depending on the vendor to provide "technical support". Then, you use some glue to get data combined via APIs where it is appropriate. It takes a lot of effort to make that all work, period. So, your cho
97 percent of them are satisfied! (Score:3)
that article is very different from its headline or what the summary implies other paragraphs say:
> According to the survey, the vast majority of C-suite execs (97 percent) were satisfied their current ERP systems met their business requirements for the most part, dispelling the idea that users are in any rush to get to the latest SaaS platforms.
and
> Dixie John, senior director of ERP strategy at Gartner, told The Register that while using third-party support to extend existing applications might be a good tactical option in the short or medium term, eventually organizations will need to upgrade their ERP. This is because certain foundational capabilities – cash management, accounts receivable, invoicing – work better in a single application.
> Users are becoming more risk-averse to a mix-and-match approach to building an AI agent system and are looking to reduce risk by opting for solutions from their existing vendors.
soooo yeah, idk why there would be any expectation for enterprises to suddenly want to do their own integration and orchestration of cloud services anymore than they have in the past. I'm even somewhat in the field and idk WTH this article is really saying, if anything.
But that's par for the course in "enterprise software".
Going nowhere (Score:4, Insightful)
Having spent most of my life in B2B e-commerce, this topic really resonates with me.
I've always wanted modular and composable ERPs. It's the kind of flexibility that's essential, since each product has different characteristics.
But the biggest problem I've faced almost my entire life is dealing with CEOs, CFOs, and other C-level executives who swear up and down that their companies are unique and special, different from all the others.
How many hours of meetings I spent trying to convince them that, no, their company isn't that special. If you're going to hire an ERP, accept and adopt its damn methodology! Not the other way around. Don't try to bend it to fit your idiosyncratic, convoluted processes.
Even so, I've lost count of how much time and money I've seen wasted on projects that ended up poorly implemented, if not completely failed.
Thankfully, I'm retired and will never have to worry about this again.
Re: (Score:2)
ERP software is for the part of the company that is NOT unique and special
IF you are unique and special in those areas, you probally have a problem with org structure and/or management
I think the best place to be special is in CRM, Support and Helpdesk
Happy customers that get products on time, working to spec and support with problems, buy more and buy again
This includes internal customers (service monitoring, trouble fixes)
Reapplying customizations to ERP after upgrades (lots of manpower hours) always se
"Screwfix" (Score:2)
Would be an apt name for a software company with a poor attitude toward fixing bugs.
I could think of at least one such company.
Used to rigidly (Score:1)
ERPs per se don't require rigid highly structured, enforced business processes, formalistic deployment patterns. Yet, this is what organizations might end up with due to administrative biases.
Up to a certain complexity composing might be better, but I wonder if there multinationals left with their home cooked composed ERP functionality.
Re: (Score:3)
I believe that's MBAspeak for, "I dunno, the next thing? Yeah, that's it, the next thing we use."
Re:Excuse me, what? (Score:4, Informative)
> And what in the name of all that is holy is "composable, API-driven best-of-breed systems" supposed to be?
It means that instead of using monolithic software from a single vendor (like SAP or Peoplesoft) for everything in your company, you pick and choose the best software for each task, and somehow let them work together through published APIs. That's going to be fun if your systems for payroll, inventory, human resource management, learning management, order management, manufacturing and so on, all come different vendors with different data architectures, all to be glued together through their APIs. Maybe even SAP is better than that nightmare... the devil is in that "somehow".
Re: (Score:2)
>> And what in the name of all that is holy is "composable, API-driven best-of-breed systems" supposed to be?
> It means that instead of using monolithic software from a single vendor (like SAP or Peoplesoft) for everything in your company, you pick and choose the best software for each task, and somehow let them work together through published APIs. That's going to be fun if your systems for payroll, inventory, human resource management, learning management, order management, manufacturing and so on, all come different vendors with different data architectures, all to be glued together through their APIs. Maybe even SAP is better than that nightmare... the devil is in that "somehow".
That's where the AI sales pitch goes into fever pace. You can buy all these separate systems and just get the AI to connect them. Done and done. And while the C suite is busy patting themselves on the back for their genius move, the IT director can have a private panic attack of his nightmare mess that no amount of re-hiring is going to fix.
We keep having to learn the same lessons over and over in the IT world, because the decisions are always out of our hands, but the cleanup never is.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, what a nightmare.
It sounds like like they interviewed people that don’t manufacture.
It’s hard enough to make a monolithic ERP work let alone join different ones.
BOMs, jobs, serial numbers, combining sub assemblies, shipping from partial jobs while maintaining COGs, tracking labor, payroll, manufacturing execution, QA, AR, AP, Inventory management, purchasing, sales, budgeting.
ERP systems are hugely complex and interlinked.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]https://www.dack.com/web/bulls... [dack.com]
[1] https://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html
Re: (Score:1)
> First, "CFOs, CISOs, CIOs and CEOs" is a list of people one doesn't exactly associate with competence and foresight.
You have two choices. Either become one of those smarter CxOs, or remember they outrank you. Every time. So it doesn’t much matter what you think. Which is the reason that world class piece of shit ERP system is still running the company.
> And what in the name of all that is holy is "composable, API-driven best-of-breed systems" supposed to be?
Ask Oracle. Sounds like some elite marketing speak only an Ellison litigation team of financial assassins could love to hate to license-and-sue.