In de ERP-markt voor middelgrote productiebedrijven heeft het analistenbureau Gartner onderzoek verricht naar de "compleetheid in visie" en "het in staat zijn om deze uit te voeren" van de verschillende ERP-leveranciers.
Gartner merkt een verschuiving in de markt en een wisseling van de wacht waarbij 'oudere' ERP-oplosisngen worden voorbijgestreefd door modernere ERP-oplossingen. De trend die daaraan ten grondslag liggen zijn:
- De behoefte aan branchespecifieke functionaliteit
- Modernisatie van de technologie, service-oriented architecture (SOA)
- De behoefte aan 'global deployments'.
Gartner concludeert dat er momenteel slechts een oplossing is met het stempel 'marktleider', namelijk Microsoft Dynamics AX. Dit o.a. door zijn robuuste karakter en lage TCO door de naadloze integratie met andere Microsoft producten.
In totaal onderzocht Gartner dertien ERP-oplossingen voor productiebedrijven, waaronder Microsoft Dynamics AX. De belangrijkste conclusies uit het onderzoek m.b.t. Microsoft Dynamics AX op een rijtje (Engels):
- The role-tailored User Interface and the Microsoft Office look-and-feel with which most users in midmarket companies are familiar make training and adoption by end users easy.
- Dynamics AX is built on Microsoft's infrastructure, which is the most used among midmarket companies, although it does not yet fully embrace the latest .NET technologies.
- The scalability of Microsoft Dynamics AX was improved in the last releases, so several hundred users and multiple legal entities can now be supported in one central instance.
- Within the latest release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, prepackaged BI functionality is included, specifically offering BI components, prebuilt BI cubes and BI reports.
- Microsoft has extensive certification programs for this product's partners in place, and encourages partners to use the Sure Step methodology; however, the latest and highest level of Certified for Microsoft Dynamics (CfMD) is not yet adopted by the majority of partners.
- The broad partner ecosystem delivers a variety of industry- and customer-specific solutions.
- Microsoft is building a layer of vertical functionality for selected industries in manufacturing, professional services, wholesale/distribution and the public sector, which will make it easier for partners to complete the long-tail functionality needed by most companies.
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Dynamics AX is easy to customize, and offers high flexibility for adapting to process changes and enhancements.
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The tight integration to Microsoft Office is a highlight that has been consistently praised by customers, enabling users to work in an environment that they are very familiar with, thus increasing user productivity.
Grafische weergave Gartner Quadrant