Software Buyers Are Not Ready For New Options: Survey

In an Agresso-sponsored survey 'Mid-Market Service Companies' Enterprise Investment Strategies and Adoption Trends', Albert Pang, director, enterprise applications research, IDC, found too many companies are overspending on ERP software due to complacency and relying on brand names.

Forty-seven per cent of the respondents stated that their financial applications costs exceeded their planned budgets by as much as 100 per cent. According to IDC research, this buyer complacency to continue down the same path with the same vendors may be costing public and private sector businesses millions of pounds annually.

"Companies need to acknowledge the hidden costs of their ERP software following initial implementations," said Pang. "Many users need to ask whether they should continue to stick to their current ERP system providers. If they don't, it seems to suggest that they are not willing to consider the options of using new, perhaps lesser known vendors. There is either a sense of complacency or one of hopelessness that costs can never be reined in."

IDC says 83 per cent of ERP customers say they will still buy from the same vendor despite cost over-runs and change issues.

"The business leaders need to analyse and perhaps adjust their buying behaviour to review a wider array of alternatives before deciding on replacement solutions,"