Sadly, it is not difficult for so many of us to concede that, except for maybe the historic elections in the US and the successful Olympic Games in Beijing, 2008 was a terrible and somber year. It felt long-drawn-out, and many of us will have trouble sinking it easily into oblivion.
Without even talking about our retirement funds and investments being slashed by about 40 percent (as part of a potentially more far-reaching financial crisis) or about 2.6 million jobs lost in the US only, just look at mushrooming late 2008 layoffs news at even the biggest and typically impervious enterprise applications vendors. For example, both Bruce Richardson of AMR Research and Frank Scavo of Enterprise Systems Spectator have reported in their respective December 2008 blog posts about Infor’s deliberate preparations for a downturn.
Along similar lines (although about some vendors there have been rumors rather than a public acknowledgement by the vendor) were the recent cost-cutting and restructuring moves by Sage, Consona, Lawson Software, Oracle, and Epicor Software. The market leader SAP has not yet been plagued by major layoffs per se, although there have been rumors/reports about the recently enacted stringent internal corporate-wide cost-cutting policies, such as restricted traveling, training, events, and so on.
I am indeed aware of the fact that there was no traditional SAP Influencer/Analyst Summit this past fall/winter, after several years of being a major winter event solely for industry analysts and media. Thus, trying to think positively, I am happy to report about coming across at least one vendor with upbeat news and upright posture in these dreary days.
In fact, how often have we heard about a mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) provider’s quarterly global results in late 2008 revealing a 37 percent increase in revenue and sales (with 30 percent growth in North America), with the company claiming many significant new orders worth over US$ 1 million?
These results would be even more impressive against the backdrop of its major rivals’ results; for instance, SAP reported a 9 percent year-over-year decline in new license revenues over the same period.
So, Who’s Above the Fray?
The vendor in case is Unit 4 Agresso, an international provider of business software headquartered in Sliedrecht, the Netherlands. The company has over 3,500 employees in offices in 12 European countries and 9 countries outside Europe, with sales activities in several other countries. Depending on the ever-fluctuating exchange rates, Unit 4 Agresso’s revenues for 2008 are expected to be between US$500 million and US$600 million.
Unit 4 Agresso’s major subsidiary is Agresso, a mid-market ERP company and one of the top five providers of solutions for professional services and public sector organizations. With over 10,000 deployments and 1.5 million users in 100 countries, Agresso is also lauded as the sixth largest mid-market ERP provider worldwide in a recent market share report by IDC. Besides, the vendor is the undisputed top provider for public sectors in the United Kingdom (UK), Norway, and Sweden.
Many previous TEC articles and blog posts have talked about Agresso’s go-to-market strategy that starts with targeting Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC) with the business advantage of post-implementation agility. Namely, service organizations with 500 to 5,000 employees in market segments like government, higher education, not-for-profits, utilities, architecture, engineering & construction (A/E/C), information technology (IT) services, real estate, business services, marketing/communications, etc. continually experience a number of change drivers.
Without even talking about our retirement funds and investments being slashed by about 40 percent (as part of a potentially more far-reaching financial crisis) or about 2.6 million jobs lost in the US only, just look at mushrooming late 2008 layoffs news at even the biggest and typically impervious enterprise applications vendors. For example, both Bruce Richardson of AMR Research and Frank Scavo of Enterprise Systems Spectator have reported in their respective December 2008 blog posts about Infor’s deliberate preparations for a downturn.
Along similar lines (although about some vendors there have been rumors rather than a public acknowledgement by the vendor) were the recent cost-cutting and restructuring moves by Sage, Consona, Lawson Software, Oracle, and Epicor Software. The market leader SAP has not yet been plagued by major layoffs per se, although there have been rumors/reports about the recently enacted stringent internal corporate-wide cost-cutting policies, such as restricted traveling, training, events, and so on.
I am indeed aware of the fact that there was no traditional SAP Influencer/Analyst Summit this past fall/winter, after several years of being a major winter event solely for industry analysts and media. Thus, trying to think positively, I am happy to report about coming across at least one vendor with upbeat news and upright posture in these dreary days.
In fact, how often have we heard about a mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) provider’s quarterly global results in late 2008 revealing a 37 percent increase in revenue and sales (with 30 percent growth in North America), with the company claiming many significant new orders worth over US$ 1 million?
These results would be even more impressive against the backdrop of its major rivals’ results; for instance, SAP reported a 9 percent year-over-year decline in new license revenues over the same period.
So, Who’s Above the Fray?
The vendor in case is Unit 4 Agresso, an international provider of business software headquartered in Sliedrecht, the Netherlands. The company has over 3,500 employees in offices in 12 European countries and 9 countries outside Europe, with sales activities in several other countries. Depending on the ever-fluctuating exchange rates, Unit 4 Agresso’s revenues for 2008 are expected to be between US$500 million and US$600 million.
Unit 4 Agresso’s major subsidiary is Agresso, a mid-market ERP company and one of the top five providers of solutions for professional services and public sector organizations. With over 10,000 deployments and 1.5 million users in 100 countries, Agresso is also lauded as the sixth largest mid-market ERP provider worldwide in a recent market share report by IDC. Besides, the vendor is the undisputed top provider for public sectors in the United Kingdom (UK), Norway, and Sweden.
Many previous TEC articles and blog posts have talked about Agresso’s go-to-market strategy that starts with targeting Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC) with the business advantage of post-implementation agility. Namely, service organizations with 500 to 5,000 employees in market segments like government, higher education, not-for-profits, utilities, architecture, engineering & construction (A/E/C), information technology (IT) services, real estate, business services, marketing/communications, etc. continually experience a number of change drivers.
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