Integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solutions have become synonymous with competitive advantage, particularly throughout the 1990's. ERP systems replace "islands of information" with a single, packaged software solution that integrates all traditional enterprise management functions like financials, human resources, and manufacturing & logistics (See Market Information Sidebar for more details). We also believe that having an ERP system is a prerequisite in most business environments to fully take advantage of the latest business information processing trends, such as e-Business and customer relationship management (CRM).
One could distinguish the following two segments within the ERP market:
1.
Corporate ERP solutions are primarily focused on the consolidated data management, financial and human resources needs of large Fortune 1000 companies. It evolved from accounting and contract management systems in the early 1980s. Human resources and more comprehensive financial planning and control systems were added in the 1990s. Leading vendors of these solutions are SAP, Oracle, and PeopleSoft.
2.
Plant/Operations ERP solutions are primarily focused on the specific needs of mid-range manufacturing plants and distribution sites or the operations level of global companies. This ERP market segment's roots are in the control automation market of the 1960s and 1970s and the manufacturing planning software market of the 1980s. This evolved into the ERP of the 1990s. Leading vendors of these ERP solutions include SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Baan, JBA (now a division of Geac Software Corp.), Intentia International, SSA, Lawson Software, QAD, IFS AB, Symix Systems, MAPICS, Navision, and a number of smaller niche ERP players.
In 80's and 90's, businesses have been subject to increasing global competition, resulting in a pressure to lower production costs, improve product performance and quality, increase responsiveness to customers and shorten product development and delivery cycles. Furthermore, globalization has greatly increased the scope and complexity of multinational manufacturing organizations. Therefore, companies have long been urged to develop or purchase and implement software applications to automate their business processes, leverage their transnational data stores in order to make more informed decisions, and ultimately, decrease operating costs. Companies realized the need to be able to react rapidly to change due to increasing competition, deregulation, globalization, and mergers & acquisition activity.
During the second half of the 1990s, the market for ERP systems has experienced strong growth rates in excess of 50% per year, from US$ 5.7B in 1995 to US$ 16.6B in 1998 [Source: AMR Research]. Some of the key drivers, in addition to the above mentioned underlining reasons, were:
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The transition from custom-designed legacy software (software developed by or for a specific customer) to the implementation of standard systems that can be applied across different types of industries. This was particularly true for the largest companies, who previously thought that they had the resources to develop business solutions under their own steam.
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In addition to the transition to standard systems, ERP systems have been extended to support an increasing number of business processes in integrated solutions like engineering, customer support, sales support, human resources, etc.
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The customer base has also expanded from mainly manufacturing, trade, and distribution to the public and financial sectors, transportation, infrastructure, defense, federal and local governments, utilities, etc.
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In the past three years, Year 2000 (Y2K) and the adoption of the Euro currency have been important driving forces in the development of the market. As a matter of fact, resolving the Y2K problem has, in many instances, led to the installation of a new ERP system.
The worsening plight of most ERP vendors, caused by the market slowdown, which started in the fourth quarter of 1998, continued in full force throughout 1999. During the last 12 months, the 20 largest ERP vendors achieved an estimated average growth of 25% [Source TEC; this figure should not be confused with the absolute ERP market revenue annual growth], which is much less compared to the equivalent growth of over 40% a year earlier. Particularly affected was the license revenue, which is expected to decline more than 10% in 1999 compared to 1998 (See Table 1). The market was dramatically less profitable than in 1998 (down 27.3%), measured in the total raw $ net income (See Table 1).
Table 1
ERP Market Financial Data
1997
1998
1999 (est.)
2000 (est.)
Total Revenue 11.0 16.6 18.5-19.5 25.0-27.0
Total revenue growth of the market 43% 40% 12%-16% 30%-38%
Average Licenses Revenue/Total Revenue Ratio 56.2% 48.2% 39.0% 35%-40%
Total license revenue growth 43% 20% -10% 10%-20%
Net income growth over previous years 74.9% -28.3% -27.3% 5%-25%
Average R&D Investment/License Revenue Ratio 22.0% 28.5% 32.4% 30%-35%
Average R&D Investment/Total Revenue Ratio 12.4% 13.7% 12.6% 13%-15%
We believe that the continued ERP market slowdown in 1999 was primarily attributable to the following factors:
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The historical growth in sales of ERP applications has come from large, Fortune 1000 multinational corporations. This market has been highly penetrated, and new, large-scale back-office implementations in the F1000 customer base have all but stalled.
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Continued focus of companies on Year 2000 (Y2K) remediation brought the purchases of new ERP systems in 1999 to a significant standstill.
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The relatively untapped Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SME) market has been cautious about starting new projects due to the bad publicity of a large number of unsuccessful ERP implementations in the past. This fear has been additionally aggravated by the need to integrate disparate systems, given that currently no single vendor can offer a complete end-to-end solution (from supplier to end customer).
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The technology paradigm shift from Client/Server to the Internet created uncertainty about investing in the traditional Client/Server technology, which is still prevalent among leading ERP players.
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The economic recession in markets outside North America, particularly in Asia.
The market size for 1999, with the 4th quarter yet to be reported, is estimated at $18.5B-$19.5B (12%-16% growth over 1998), with sales expected to top $55B-60B by 2003, for a CAGR of 28%-32%. The market appears to be consolidating. The top 6 ERP vendors, SAP AG, Oracle Corporation, PeopleSoft Inc., Geac Software Corporation (See TEC's News Analysis article: "Geac and JBA Join Forces to Form New ERP Giant" October 6, 1999), J.D. Edwards & Company, and Baan Co., account for ~70% of total ERP revenue. Consolidation, mergers and acquisitions are expected to intensify. Over the last two years, the ERP market became stratified into growing and profitable vendors on one side, and stagnating and non-profitable vendors on the other side (See Market Winners, Market Challengers, and Market Losers). We believe that this will become more accentuated, with customers becoming more vendor viability wary. We expect larger ERP vendors to swallow up their smaller brethren, both in ERP and related markets, such as the recent IFS AB acquisition of Effective Management Systems, Inc., the manufacturing execution systems (MES) vendor, and MAPICS' acquisition of Pivotpoint, the vendor of extended ERP for mid-market companies. We also expect companies with related software products to move into the ERP space through acquisition like Invensys, Plc. with its acquisition of Marcam Solutions.
ERP systems have earned the general perception of being exorbitantly expensive to license and implement, and vendors have recently been trying to change that infamous image with new pricing options in order to keep users' costs down. Users typically pay an up-front per-user (either concurrent or named) license fee and an annual maintenance charge to use ERP systems (typically 12%-20% of the license fee). The per-seat price for ERP varies greatly depending on the number of users, the number of modules to be deployed and what "bells and whistles" are added, and whether the company belongs to the high-end Tier 1 (Fortune 500) or the SME (Tier 2 and 3) market segment. The per-user price range has been from $2,000 to $8,000 (typically higher values for larger companies), with the continual price decline trend owing to fierce competition and the reduced or postponed demand for software. Many vendors offer per-month per-user rental or outsourcing deals as an alternative to traditional up-front licenses. Fixed price, preinstalled, pre-configured ERP is also available and is particularly attractive for the lower-end of market.
Sales cycles vary from months to years depending on the company size, its organizational structure (single or multi-site, international or not), and the functional scope of the project. While the selection phase of software acquisitions will increasingly gain critical importance (due to customers' increased awareness of possibly fatal consequences from selecting a wrong software), the pressure for faster decision-making will mount both from vendors (who want shorter and less fluctuating sales cycles) and users (in order to stay ahead of their competitors). As a rule, every $1 of ERP software sales drives on average another $3-$6 of additional hardware, third party integration and consulting, and resellers revenue, although in some cases additional costs can reach $10-15 for each dollar spent on software.
During the last two years, the functional perimeter of ERP systems began an expansion into its adjacent markets, such as supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence, and e-Business. While most traditional ERP software enables the integration and management of critical data within enterprises, companies have increasingly recognized the need to deploy more advanced software systems that manage the global supply chain by enhancing the flow of information to and from customers, suppliers and other business partners outside the enterprise. More recently, the availability and use of the Internet has created a demand for software that operates across the Internet and intranets. This global logistics concept merged with new constraint-based optimization solutions called advanced planning systems (APS) and specialized warehouse management software, resulting in SCM (See TEC's Technology Research Note: "Advanced Planning and Scheduling: A Critical Part of Customer Fulfillment" December 10th, 1999 ). The major ERP players already have offerings or strategies addressing this important need (See TEC's Technology Research Notes: "The Essential Supply Chain" September 16th, 1999, and "SAP APO - Will It Fill the Gap" September 2nd, 1999).
Another important area of functional expansion is in the front office/customer relationship management (CRM) arena. Customers are demanding applications and tools that allow them to link back-office ERP systems with front-office CRM systems. They are also demanding enhanced capabilities for e-Business, especially business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) electronic commerce. The leading ERP vendors have begun to discern the opportunity these products present and the benefit potential for organizations implementing them. CRM has gone from a vast field of point solutions to suites of customer care applications covering sales force automation, field service, telesales, call center, marketing automation, etc. ERP vendors have explored various routes to penetrate the CRM and e-Commerce markets, such as developing in-house products (SAP, with its telesales module and mySAP.com portal), acquiring point specialists to augment their offering (Oracle through its acquisitions of Versatility for call center, Tinoway for field service, and Concentra for product configurator module), merging full suites (Baan with its acquisition of Aurum in 1997, and PeopleSoft with its acquisition of Vantive in 1999), and partnering with CRM and e-Commerce leaders (J.D. Edwards with Siebel and Ariba, and SAP with Recognition Systems Group for its market campaigns module).
Market Leader/Winners
We generally believe that, in the long run, market winners will be those vendors with an established large customer base and with huge financial and human resources that would make them more responsive to any future challenges such as sudden market trends and/or technology paradigm shifts. Rated according to this metric, the current market leaders, SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and Baan would be seen as long-term market winners. However, we would like to make a clear distinction between SAP and Oracle, as undisputed winners on one side, and the latter three as winners/challengers on the other side, owing to their substantially lower market share and dismal results in 1999.
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SAP is the current market share leader (~32%) after taking global markets by storm with the release of its flagship R/3 client/server product at the beginning of the 1990s.
Strengths: Commanding market position and brand recognition, very sound financial situation, functional breadth of the core R/3 product, attractiveness of mySAP.com portal for its existing large customer base.
Challenges: Lengthy and costly implementations in the past, a complex and rigid product, slower total revenue growth in 1999 (~12%) with an ~5% decline in licenses revenue and an ~23% decline in net income, delayed delivery of CRM and SCM modules.
For more details, see TEC's note on SAP: "SAP AG - ERP Leader with a 'New Dimension'" September 1st, 1999.
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Oracle fortified its position as 2nd largest ERP vendor during 1999 by increasing its ERP market share (up to ~14%) after being the only large vendor to achieve significant growth in both total revenue (~24%), license revenue (~16%) and net income (~59%).
Strengths: Corporate viability, solid reputation of horizontal applications for functionality and scalability, technology infrastructure ownership, strong international professional services, early Internet architecture adoption and entry to CRM market.
Challenges: Product integration issues, delayed delivery of CRM and SCM modules, divided management attention on a wide range of initiatives, inefficient sales execution.
For more details, see TEC's note on Oracle: "Oracle Co. - Internet Paradigm Boosts Applications Growth" September 1st, 1999.
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PeopleSoft retained its position as 3rd largest ERP vendor, despite sharply sliding license revenue (down ~43%), mostly flat total revenues, the first non-profitable fiscal year, and management upheavals during 1999.
Strengths: Large and loyal HRMS and financial module customer base, corporate viability and culture, user-friendly user interface and development tools (modification feasibility), strong vertical focus for certain non-manufacturing industries.
Challenges: Product integration of acquired Vantive CRM product, market perception of its manufacturing product weakness, no significant number of full ERP reference sites, floundering Internet strategy throughout 1999, low brand awareness outside North American market.
For more details, see TEC's note on PeopleSoft: "PeopleSoft - Are Business Intelligence and e-Commerce Enough?" September 1st, 1999.
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J.D. Edwards lost its 4th largest ERP vendor position owing to Geac's acquisition of JBA International. Fiscal 1999 was the least successful year in the company's history of public trading, with a dismal total revenue growth (~1%), declined license revenue (down ~19%), and the hefty loss of ~$39M.
Strengths: A well-established leading global position in the mid-market, advanced cross-platform migration strategy, OneWorld's architecture that promotes flexibility and ongoing post-implementation system agility, well-developed affiliate channel.
Challenges: Product integration of acquired Numetrix and Premisys SCM products, bland marketing efforts in the past, OneWorld initial product functionality glitches, lack of own CRM and e-Commerce products and need to rely on a number of partnering agreements.
One could distinguish the following two segments within the ERP market:
1.
Corporate ERP solutions are primarily focused on the consolidated data management, financial and human resources needs of large Fortune 1000 companies. It evolved from accounting and contract management systems in the early 1980s. Human resources and more comprehensive financial planning and control systems were added in the 1990s. Leading vendors of these solutions are SAP, Oracle, and PeopleSoft.
2.
Plant/Operations ERP solutions are primarily focused on the specific needs of mid-range manufacturing plants and distribution sites or the operations level of global companies. This ERP market segment's roots are in the control automation market of the 1960s and 1970s and the manufacturing planning software market of the 1980s. This evolved into the ERP of the 1990s. Leading vendors of these ERP solutions include SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Baan, JBA (now a division of Geac Software Corp.), Intentia International, SSA, Lawson Software, QAD, IFS AB, Symix Systems, MAPICS, Navision, and a number of smaller niche ERP players.
In 80's and 90's, businesses have been subject to increasing global competition, resulting in a pressure to lower production costs, improve product performance and quality, increase responsiveness to customers and shorten product development and delivery cycles. Furthermore, globalization has greatly increased the scope and complexity of multinational manufacturing organizations. Therefore, companies have long been urged to develop or purchase and implement software applications to automate their business processes, leverage their transnational data stores in order to make more informed decisions, and ultimately, decrease operating costs. Companies realized the need to be able to react rapidly to change due to increasing competition, deregulation, globalization, and mergers & acquisition activity.
During the second half of the 1990s, the market for ERP systems has experienced strong growth rates in excess of 50% per year, from US$ 5.7B in 1995 to US$ 16.6B in 1998 [Source: AMR Research]. Some of the key drivers, in addition to the above mentioned underlining reasons, were:
*
The transition from custom-designed legacy software (software developed by or for a specific customer) to the implementation of standard systems that can be applied across different types of industries. This was particularly true for the largest companies, who previously thought that they had the resources to develop business solutions under their own steam.
*
In addition to the transition to standard systems, ERP systems have been extended to support an increasing number of business processes in integrated solutions like engineering, customer support, sales support, human resources, etc.
*
The customer base has also expanded from mainly manufacturing, trade, and distribution to the public and financial sectors, transportation, infrastructure, defense, federal and local governments, utilities, etc.
*
In the past three years, Year 2000 (Y2K) and the adoption of the Euro currency have been important driving forces in the development of the market. As a matter of fact, resolving the Y2K problem has, in many instances, led to the installation of a new ERP system.
The worsening plight of most ERP vendors, caused by the market slowdown, which started in the fourth quarter of 1998, continued in full force throughout 1999. During the last 12 months, the 20 largest ERP vendors achieved an estimated average growth of 25% [Source TEC; this figure should not be confused with the absolute ERP market revenue annual growth], which is much less compared to the equivalent growth of over 40% a year earlier. Particularly affected was the license revenue, which is expected to decline more than 10% in 1999 compared to 1998 (See Table 1). The market was dramatically less profitable than in 1998 (down 27.3%), measured in the total raw $ net income (See Table 1).
Table 1
ERP Market Financial Data
1997
1998
1999 (est.)
2000 (est.)
Total Revenue 11.0 16.6 18.5-19.5 25.0-27.0
Total revenue growth of the market 43% 40% 12%-16% 30%-38%
Average Licenses Revenue/Total Revenue Ratio 56.2% 48.2% 39.0% 35%-40%
Total license revenue growth 43% 20% -10% 10%-20%
Net income growth over previous years 74.9% -28.3% -27.3% 5%-25%
Average R&D Investment/License Revenue Ratio 22.0% 28.5% 32.4% 30%-35%
Average R&D Investment/Total Revenue Ratio 12.4% 13.7% 12.6% 13%-15%
We believe that the continued ERP market slowdown in 1999 was primarily attributable to the following factors:
*
The historical growth in sales of ERP applications has come from large, Fortune 1000 multinational corporations. This market has been highly penetrated, and new, large-scale back-office implementations in the F1000 customer base have all but stalled.
*
Continued focus of companies on Year 2000 (Y2K) remediation brought the purchases of new ERP systems in 1999 to a significant standstill.
*
The relatively untapped Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SME) market has been cautious about starting new projects due to the bad publicity of a large number of unsuccessful ERP implementations in the past. This fear has been additionally aggravated by the need to integrate disparate systems, given that currently no single vendor can offer a complete end-to-end solution (from supplier to end customer).
*
The technology paradigm shift from Client/Server to the Internet created uncertainty about investing in the traditional Client/Server technology, which is still prevalent among leading ERP players.
*
The economic recession in markets outside North America, particularly in Asia.
The market size for 1999, with the 4th quarter yet to be reported, is estimated at $18.5B-$19.5B (12%-16% growth over 1998), with sales expected to top $55B-60B by 2003, for a CAGR of 28%-32%. The market appears to be consolidating. The top 6 ERP vendors, SAP AG, Oracle Corporation, PeopleSoft Inc., Geac Software Corporation (See TEC's News Analysis article: "Geac and JBA Join Forces to Form New ERP Giant" October 6, 1999), J.D. Edwards & Company, and Baan Co., account for ~70% of total ERP revenue. Consolidation, mergers and acquisitions are expected to intensify. Over the last two years, the ERP market became stratified into growing and profitable vendors on one side, and stagnating and non-profitable vendors on the other side (See Market Winners, Market Challengers, and Market Losers). We believe that this will become more accentuated, with customers becoming more vendor viability wary. We expect larger ERP vendors to swallow up their smaller brethren, both in ERP and related markets, such as the recent IFS AB acquisition of Effective Management Systems, Inc., the manufacturing execution systems (MES) vendor, and MAPICS' acquisition of Pivotpoint, the vendor of extended ERP for mid-market companies. We also expect companies with related software products to move into the ERP space through acquisition like Invensys, Plc. with its acquisition of Marcam Solutions.
ERP systems have earned the general perception of being exorbitantly expensive to license and implement, and vendors have recently been trying to change that infamous image with new pricing options in order to keep users' costs down. Users typically pay an up-front per-user (either concurrent or named) license fee and an annual maintenance charge to use ERP systems (typically 12%-20% of the license fee). The per-seat price for ERP varies greatly depending on the number of users, the number of modules to be deployed and what "bells and whistles" are added, and whether the company belongs to the high-end Tier 1 (Fortune 500) or the SME (Tier 2 and 3) market segment. The per-user price range has been from $2,000 to $8,000 (typically higher values for larger companies), with the continual price decline trend owing to fierce competition and the reduced or postponed demand for software. Many vendors offer per-month per-user rental or outsourcing deals as an alternative to traditional up-front licenses. Fixed price, preinstalled, pre-configured ERP is also available and is particularly attractive for the lower-end of market.
Sales cycles vary from months to years depending on the company size, its organizational structure (single or multi-site, international or not), and the functional scope of the project. While the selection phase of software acquisitions will increasingly gain critical importance (due to customers' increased awareness of possibly fatal consequences from selecting a wrong software), the pressure for faster decision-making will mount both from vendors (who want shorter and less fluctuating sales cycles) and users (in order to stay ahead of their competitors). As a rule, every $1 of ERP software sales drives on average another $3-$6 of additional hardware, third party integration and consulting, and resellers revenue, although in some cases additional costs can reach $10-15 for each dollar spent on software.
During the last two years, the functional perimeter of ERP systems began an expansion into its adjacent markets, such as supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence, and e-Business. While most traditional ERP software enables the integration and management of critical data within enterprises, companies have increasingly recognized the need to deploy more advanced software systems that manage the global supply chain by enhancing the flow of information to and from customers, suppliers and other business partners outside the enterprise. More recently, the availability and use of the Internet has created a demand for software that operates across the Internet and intranets. This global logistics concept merged with new constraint-based optimization solutions called advanced planning systems (APS) and specialized warehouse management software, resulting in SCM (See TEC's Technology Research Note: "Advanced Planning and Scheduling: A Critical Part of Customer Fulfillment" December 10th, 1999 ). The major ERP players already have offerings or strategies addressing this important need (See TEC's Technology Research Notes: "The Essential Supply Chain" September 16th, 1999, and "SAP APO - Will It Fill the Gap" September 2nd, 1999).
Another important area of functional expansion is in the front office/customer relationship management (CRM) arena. Customers are demanding applications and tools that allow them to link back-office ERP systems with front-office CRM systems. They are also demanding enhanced capabilities for e-Business, especially business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) electronic commerce. The leading ERP vendors have begun to discern the opportunity these products present and the benefit potential for organizations implementing them. CRM has gone from a vast field of point solutions to suites of customer care applications covering sales force automation, field service, telesales, call center, marketing automation, etc. ERP vendors have explored various routes to penetrate the CRM and e-Commerce markets, such as developing in-house products (SAP, with its telesales module and mySAP.com portal), acquiring point specialists to augment their offering (Oracle through its acquisitions of Versatility for call center, Tinoway for field service, and Concentra for product configurator module), merging full suites (Baan with its acquisition of Aurum in 1997, and PeopleSoft with its acquisition of Vantive in 1999), and partnering with CRM and e-Commerce leaders (J.D. Edwards with Siebel and Ariba, and SAP with Recognition Systems Group for its market campaigns module).
Market Leader/Winners
We generally believe that, in the long run, market winners will be those vendors with an established large customer base and with huge financial and human resources that would make them more responsive to any future challenges such as sudden market trends and/or technology paradigm shifts. Rated according to this metric, the current market leaders, SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and Baan would be seen as long-term market winners. However, we would like to make a clear distinction between SAP and Oracle, as undisputed winners on one side, and the latter three as winners/challengers on the other side, owing to their substantially lower market share and dismal results in 1999.
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SAP is the current market share leader (~32%) after taking global markets by storm with the release of its flagship R/3 client/server product at the beginning of the 1990s.
Strengths: Commanding market position and brand recognition, very sound financial situation, functional breadth of the core R/3 product, attractiveness of mySAP.com portal for its existing large customer base.
Challenges: Lengthy and costly implementations in the past, a complex and rigid product, slower total revenue growth in 1999 (~12%) with an ~5% decline in licenses revenue and an ~23% decline in net income, delayed delivery of CRM and SCM modules.
For more details, see TEC's note on SAP: "SAP AG - ERP Leader with a 'New Dimension'" September 1st, 1999.
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Oracle fortified its position as 2nd largest ERP vendor during 1999 by increasing its ERP market share (up to ~14%) after being the only large vendor to achieve significant growth in both total revenue (~24%), license revenue (~16%) and net income (~59%).
Strengths: Corporate viability, solid reputation of horizontal applications for functionality and scalability, technology infrastructure ownership, strong international professional services, early Internet architecture adoption and entry to CRM market.
Challenges: Product integration issues, delayed delivery of CRM and SCM modules, divided management attention on a wide range of initiatives, inefficient sales execution.
For more details, see TEC's note on Oracle: "Oracle Co. - Internet Paradigm Boosts Applications Growth" September 1st, 1999.
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PeopleSoft retained its position as 3rd largest ERP vendor, despite sharply sliding license revenue (down ~43%), mostly flat total revenues, the first non-profitable fiscal year, and management upheavals during 1999.
Strengths: Large and loyal HRMS and financial module customer base, corporate viability and culture, user-friendly user interface and development tools (modification feasibility), strong vertical focus for certain non-manufacturing industries.
Challenges: Product integration of acquired Vantive CRM product, market perception of its manufacturing product weakness, no significant number of full ERP reference sites, floundering Internet strategy throughout 1999, low brand awareness outside North American market.
For more details, see TEC's note on PeopleSoft: "PeopleSoft - Are Business Intelligence and e-Commerce Enough?" September 1st, 1999.
*
J.D. Edwards lost its 4th largest ERP vendor position owing to Geac's acquisition of JBA International. Fiscal 1999 was the least successful year in the company's history of public trading, with a dismal total revenue growth (~1%), declined license revenue (down ~19%), and the hefty loss of ~$39M.
Strengths: A well-established leading global position in the mid-market, advanced cross-platform migration strategy, OneWorld's architecture that promotes flexibility and ongoing post-implementation system agility, well-developed affiliate channel.
Challenges: Product integration of acquired Numetrix and Premisys SCM products, bland marketing efforts in the past, OneWorld initial product functionality glitches, lack of own CRM and e-Commerce products and need to rely on a number of partnering agreements.
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