Open house

In the e-commerce era, customers expect far more access to information from their suppliers. A supplier can save admin costs by letting customers capture their own orders online. But local ERP implementers disagree on how willing South African companies are to let their customers into back-end ERP information.

“They don't want to phone or fax or e-mail. More accurate and up-to-date information is a lot easier to do yourself, by entering the information into a supplier's Web site, rather than having someone recapture it on the supplier side,” says Robinson.

“Giving customers access to real-time stock levels at the time of ordering often goes hand-in-hand with automated text messages triggered by the actual delivery,” adds Swati Desai, country manager of Hansaworld SA.

“Also popular is giving customers access to their ledger record and sales history.”

Some local companies have reasons to keep customers out of their ERP information, while others are getting ready for the leap of trust involved.

“Our solution offers a Web-shop/online portal out of the box, yet few local customers use it to give their customers access,” says Immo B"ohm, MD of Hansaworld implementer Afresh Consult. “They believe that personal contact is vital for good business relationships.”

“Everybody says it's a good idea to let customers into their ERP, but very few people in SA do it,” says Marc Gower, director of Accpac ERP implementer, Acctech. “Our ERP clients are not confident enough of their data integrity, general systems security and their IT departments' ability.

Everybody says it's a good idea to let customers into their ERP, but very few people in SA do it.

Marc Gower, director, Acctech

“Especially at the lower end of the market, a lot of these companies have grown and grown and never employed an IT department. But a lot of companies are deciding to buy products that can do this.”

Some local ERP users are wary of losing their marketshare as a consequence of opening up ERP information to customers.

One ERP implementer has clients that let their customers see the status of a delivery or a manufacturing order, by logging in through a secure Web page. Most of its European and American clients use this solution, but less than a quarter of the company's locally-based clients have adopted it, says Jaco Stoltz, MD of Microsoft Dynamics products implementer, Strategix. Local ERP users do not regard the Web secure enough for business transactions, explains Stoltz.

The biggest question local ERP users ask, “no matter how secure the information is,” says Stoltz, are these, 'If I expose this information to my customers, how secure am I? Can I make sure my customer does not divulge this information to my competitor for a price comparison?'”

The relatively small size of the South African market, combined with diverse business maturity levels, mean varied levels of ERP information access for customers in the foreseeable future.