AMI Report: CRM and ERP Becoming Mainstream for U.S. Medium Businesses.- Small Businesses Continue to be Under-Penetrated - NEW YORK New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of -- Both ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) An integrated information system that serves all departments within an enterprise. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry, ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than proprietary software written by or for one customer. and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. are increasingly becoming mainstream applications for U.S. medium businesses (MBs), according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. AMI-Partners' 2006-2007 U.S. Small and Medium Business Applications & Solutions Market Overview. Over one third of respondent MBs are currently using ERP/SCM solutions, and just over one quarter are planning to deploy these solutions in the next 12 months. Similarly, almost 40 percent of MBs use CRM solutions today, and almost one quarter plan to adopt CRM in the next 12 months. "This data indicates that U.S. MBs have made the connection between streamlining and automating business processes, and maximizing productivity and value in the market," says Sau Lam, New York-based Research Analyst at AMI-Partners. "MBs also recognize the value of integrated suites: 75 percent of those surveyed use an accounting/financials module that is part of a larger solution suite." Survey results reveal that manufacturing, wholesale and professional services (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. MBs are leading the ERP wave, spending significantly more on these solutions than counterparts in other sectors. In the CRM arena, the professional services industry outstrips other sectors in adoption and spending. However, U.S. small businesses are more likely to take a wait-and-see attitude, especially when it comes to ERP/SCM. Although almost three quarters of SMBs use business accounting software, just 12% of SBs currently use and 11% plan to use ERP/SCM solutions in the next 12 months. CRM adoption is low as well, with one out of six SBs currently using and the same percentage planning to use CRM solutions in the next 12 months. Both markets are highly diverse in terms of the types of solutions they use. Although SMB (1) (Small to Medium-sized Business) Also called "SME" (small to medium-sized enterprise), it refers to companies that are larger than the small office/home office (SOHO), but not huge. incumbents such as Intuit in·tu·it tr.v. in·tu·it·ed, in·tu·it·ing, in·tu·its Usage Problem To know intuitively. [Back-formation from intuition. , Microsoft and Sage are strongly represented in both the ERP and CRM areas, homegrown home·grown adj. 1. Raised or grown at home. 2. Originating in or characteristic of a locality: "Rock is homegrown music in the United States, evolved from blues and country and Tin Pan Alley" , industry-specific and a long list of other solutions make these markets extremely crowded and competitive. Meanwhile, although overall SMB adoption of hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) remains relatively modest, SaaS is becoming a well accepted alternative in several specific solution areas, such as virus protection, payroll, e-mail/messaging, web conferencing A videoconferencing session via the Internet. In order to interact with other participants, attendees use either a Web application or an application downloaded into their client machines. , website content management, HR and CRM. About the Studies Based on AMI's 2006-2007 U.S. Small and Medium Business end-user surveys, the 2006-2007 U.S. Small and Medium Business Applications & Solutions Market Overview, authored by Sau Lam, Industry Analyst, and Laurie McCabe, VP, SMB Insights and Solutions, details these and other major trends and spending forecasts across accounting, CRM and ERP/SCM business solution areas, as well for related areas, including Internet solutions, and IT and business process outsourcing Business process outsourcing (BPO) is the contracting of a specific business task, such as payroll, to a third-party service provider. Usually, BPO is implemented as a cost-saving measure for tasks that a company requires but does not depend upon to maintain its position in services. The report also examines key related data, such as SMB demographics and attitudes, and trends in channels and purchasing behaviors. Findings are presented granularly, with data broken out by employee size (1-4, 5-9, 10-19, 20-49, 50-99, 100-249, 250-499, and 500-999), and by vertical industries (AMTUC, Manufacturing, Wholesale, Retail, FIRE, Professional Business Services and Other Services). The report also highlights key industry dynamics affecting the competitive landscape. Vendors highlighted in the report include Intuit, Sage, Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce.com, NetSuite, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Google, ADP (1) (Automatic Data Processing) Synonymous with data processing (DP), electronic data processing (EDP) and information processing. (2) (Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Roseland, NJ, www.adp. , Intacct, and others. For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research, please call AMI-Partners at 212-944-5100, e-mail ask_ami@ami-partners.com, or visit the AMI Web site at www.ami-partners.com. About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence -- focusing on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business planning and "go-to-market" solutions. AMI was founded in 1996 under the name of Access Media International (USA), Inc. by Andy Bose, formerly group vice president at IDC. Since its inception, the firm has built a world-class management team, each with ten to fifteen years' experience in IT, telecom, online communications or multimedia. AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies over the last ten years. The firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets See SMB. ; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 20 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis. |
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