ERP not just enterprise

By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor

Johannesburg, 17 May 2007

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is traditionally viewed as a high-end, enterprise market solution, but small to medium businesses can also benefit from it, says Russell Henley, Deltek GM of EMEA.

"SMEs need to know what is happening in their business as much as corporate enterprises," he says. Henley adds that SMEs need room to grow, and ERP solutions can help them to expand quickly and efficiently.

"Deltek's project-based ERP solution is about understanding how profitable a project is from end to end," he says. Many South African companies; both SME and enterprise, don't understand how well they are doing, and for the SME market, understanding the company is key to growth.

He says the company's modular approach to providing solutions to the market allows SMEs to select the components of ERP they require. "The corporate space is drying up and larger companies like Oracle and SAP are looking more towards the SME market."

But smaller companies are not used to buying high-end solutions. "Small business will generally have a smaller budget and will often be missing departments that can support enterprise solutions.'

According to Henley, allowing the customer to choose which modules of the software they need helps the company to price the package accordingly.

"We package all the modules in the software provided, but only turn them on when a customer needs added modules. This approach allows room for rapid SME growth, which is vital for small business," he says.

Deltek's Vision is offering an SME solution called Deltek Vision Small Business.