The Business System Spectator
For the ones that follow ERP, this post describes the latest developments with four ERP providers building on the Salesforce platform: Kenandy, FinancialForce, Rootstock, and AscentERP along with my takeaways from each of them. I’ll end with one small caveat for customers. I first had written about Kenandy following its intro on stage at Dreamforce in 2011, and I’ve held in touch with its management team for regular updates. The best information this season is the success Kenandy has already established in selling into large companies. Exhibit 1 in Kenandy’s march up-market is Big Heart Pet Brands, a distributor of pet pet and food supplies, that was formed by the carve-out of the pet food business from Del Monte Foods earlier this year.
Milk Bone, Kibbles, Gravy Train, and 9Lives, are a few of its well-known brands just. An opportunity was had by me to interview Dave McLain, the firm’s CIO, who managed to get clear that this is no two-tier ERP configuration. Apart from a small number of point solutions and an on-premises warehouse management system (Red Prairie), a single example of Kenandy will be providing all ERP functionality when fully rolled out. 2 billion in annual revenue, this may well be the biggest company running a cloud-only system as its only ERP system.
Why would McLain trust a vendor such as Kenandy with such a tall order? First, McLain was attracted to the Salesforce system and its guarantee of speedy development. In other words, he was sold on the system and looked for an ERP provider that was leveraging it then. In my view, it helps that McClain is not your typical CIO. He’s worked in the business software industry, with stints at Aspect Development, back again around the switch of the hundred years, with i2.
He isn’t only comfortable dealing with a young supplier, but he seen Kenandy’s youngsters as an edge, as he felt he would have significantly more influence over the product roadmap. Up to now, he’s happy with his choice. Big Heart Pet Brands is only the first and most visible example of Kenandy’s transfer to larger companies. Inside a briefing, Kenandy executives distributed to me several large offers they have in execution and several that are in the offing. Even though brands are private still, they are large and in some full cases very large, well-known, global companies.
- Provide insight in where in fact the case example is
- Group members should create their own goals
- 1 $100,000, $30,000 x 0.943, $28,290, $71,710, 1
- Mobile App Cultivates Customer Loyalty
One point that may keep SAP professionals awake at night: some of these prospects are reportedly approaching Kenandy due to a determination to halt further execution of SAP’s Business Suite in new parts of the world. My takeaway from Kenandy is that cloud ERP is not just for small and midsize businesses. FinancialForce is another young ERP vendor, founded in 2009 2009 as a jv between UNIT4 and Salesforce (UNIT4 is the majority shareholder).
I had written about FinancialForce this past year and commented on its acquisition of Vana Workforce and Less Software. These acquisitions expanded FinancialForce from financial systems and professional services automation into HR systems, order handling, inventory control, cost accounting, and efficiency for product-based businesses. This year, in a briefing with FinancialForce professionals, I heard about the firm’s work to embed HR activities within operational transactions.