Lawson's offerings seem well suited to companies planning to engage in e-business - or already involved in it - who do not yet have the kind of basic ERP back-office functionality that is Lawson's strength; one exception lays in that Lawson does not provide a native support for manufacturing. Since any company planning to engage in e-commerce will want to have at least a basic financials package and will need other components of an ERP suite afterwards, the easy deployability and integration promised by Lawson is a compelling reason to consider it as part of any e-commerce initiative.
We generally recommend including Lawson in a long list of an enterprise application selection to mid-market and low end tier 1 companies (with $10M-$2B in revenue), based on its very deep understanding of customers' needs within the following industries: Financial Services; Healthcare; Professional Services; Public Sector; Retail; and Telecommunications. Organizations considering ERP applications (both web based and network dependent) should however consider all available options.
Using a full Internet based solution could save time and money on the integration. Enterprises seeking a Web-based solution and out-of-box functionality with little or no re-engineering effort may benefit from evaluating Lawson's ASP offering. Support, connectivity, ease of use, security, acceptance, and scalability are only a few regular considerations. Companies with a substantial manufacturing activity (for which Lawson does not offer a native solution) and companies with more intricate business processes may want to inquire about how Lawson would deal with the issues of customizations and 3rd-party product bundling in an ASP setup.
Lawson, by adopting XML as its internal standard and providing appropriate interfaces, claims to be able to integrate with other e-commerce systems, on either the front end or the back end, so that its customers' systems can communicate smoothly with other vendors, whether via the Web, e-mail, or even Fax, EDI, and spreadsheets. This, bundled with the fact that its product will run on almost any platform or database, prompts us to believe that its competitors, particularly mid-market ERP vendors, will be enormously pressured to replicate Lawson's value proposition. However, consideration should be given to the endorsement of "web standards." Should a different XML standard be adopted (industry wide) after installation, identify who will be responsible for accommodating the change and what measures have been engineered into the application to support evolving standards.
Users should also bear in mind that improved technological integration is seldom guaranteed by joint marketing arrangements, and only comes after the arrangement yields considerable implementation experience. Plan for this general rule to hold for the partnership in question.
We generally recommend including Lawson in a long list of an enterprise application selection to mid-market and low end tier 1 companies (with $10M-$2B in revenue), based on its very deep understanding of customers' needs within the following industries: Financial Services; Healthcare; Professional Services; Public Sector; Retail; and Telecommunications. Organizations considering ERP applications (both web based and network dependent) should however consider all available options.
Using a full Internet based solution could save time and money on the integration. Enterprises seeking a Web-based solution and out-of-box functionality with little or no re-engineering effort may benefit from evaluating Lawson's ASP offering. Support, connectivity, ease of use, security, acceptance, and scalability are only a few regular considerations. Companies with a substantial manufacturing activity (for which Lawson does not offer a native solution) and companies with more intricate business processes may want to inquire about how Lawson would deal with the issues of customizations and 3rd-party product bundling in an ASP setup.
Lawson, by adopting XML as its internal standard and providing appropriate interfaces, claims to be able to integrate with other e-commerce systems, on either the front end or the back end, so that its customers' systems can communicate smoothly with other vendors, whether via the Web, e-mail, or even Fax, EDI, and spreadsheets. This, bundled with the fact that its product will run on almost any platform or database, prompts us to believe that its competitors, particularly mid-market ERP vendors, will be enormously pressured to replicate Lawson's value proposition. However, consideration should be given to the endorsement of "web standards." Should a different XML standard be adopted (industry wide) after installation, identify who will be responsible for accommodating the change and what measures have been engineered into the application to support evolving standards.
Users should also bear in mind that improved technological integration is seldom guaranteed by joint marketing arrangements, and only comes after the arrangement yields considerable implementation experience. Plan for this general rule to hold for the partnership in question.
