when embarking on a erp evaluation sap oracle and microsoft dynamics are commonly three of the most common systems that are evaluated but what are the key criteria you should use to evaluate these three systems that's what i want to talk about here today [Music] my name is eric kimberling and i'm the ceo of third stage consulting we're an independent consulting firm that helps clients through their digital transformation journeys and we oftentimes help clients through their erp evaluations and more specifically it's to evaluate sap s 4hana oracle erp cloud and microsoft dynamics 365. especially for our fortune 500 fortune 1000 and larger organizations these are the three systems that we most commonly see and help clients evaluate and implement so what i want to talk about today are what are those criteria you should be using to really differentiate between these three systems to ultimately land on what system is the best fit for your organization [Music] the first thing to look at when considering these three systems and when comparing them to one another is to understand the maturity of the products and what i mean by maturity is the technical and functional maturity one thing to keep in mind with all three of these systems is that they simply aren't as mature as their legacy on-premise counterparts so for example those that are used to or are familiar with sap ecc or microsoft dynamics ax or oracle ebs will find that these newer versions of the cloud solutions that these three vendors are providing are simply not as mature in terms of functional and technical capabilities so in other words there's a lot of functionality that was available in the on-premise systems but they're not yet available in the cloud flagship products that are being offered today so that's the first thing to look at is when you're evaluating the systems look at the maturity not just does a system have a certain functionality in a certain capability but how deep is that capability how robust is it how flexible is it now i'm actually going to come back to this point here in a second but in general you want to take a look at the maturity of the systems and understand where the strengths and weaknesses are and for what it's worth as a generalization when we look at these three systems and compare the maturity of the three systems just as a generalization we find that oracle cloud is generally more mature and more developed and more robust than sap s4hana and microsoft d365 now obviously this depends on what your specific requirements and needs are but when we look across all of our clients and the evaluations we've done we find that oracle just has more capability and is further along in their journeys and part of this could be because oracle created oracle fusion about a decade ago well before sap was working on s4hana or before microsoft released d365 so they've simply had more time and more r d to put into their cloud solution so you do want to look at your specific requirements and your specific needs and look at the maturity of the product against those needs but in general we find that oracle has a leg up over the other two systems in that regard the next thing to look at is how scalable are these two products and a lot of this is going to depend on what the scalability mean to you for some organizations scalability equates to high efficiency standard processes common business processes and repeatable processes other organizations might define scale as flexibility and i'm actually going to come back to the flexibility point here in a moment but if your definition of scalability is the ability to have common business processes and to drive a common operating model then sap s4 ohana actually has more of a leg up compared to the other two systems oracle and microsoft dynamics both are a bit more flexible and can do more things i guess i would say in terms of the ability to change the software and the systems but sap in terms of driving a common set of business processes a common architecture or common platform sap generally is stronger in that area of scalability but again it all depends on what your definition of scalability is and making sure that you assess these three systems against that criteria now the next thing you want to look at is the flexibility of the technology if you're a high growth organization or you're rapidly changing entering new markets acquiring new customers maybe even acquiring new companies then flexibility may be very important to you and you want to know that you're selecting and implementing a solution that can keep up with you and that can change as your business changes and this is where both oracle and microsoft dynamics tend to have a leg up over sap in terms of flexibility both products are a bit more adaptable and adjustable when you look at some of the different workflows and processes within the systems so i'd say one of those two systems are probably going to give you an advantage if you're looking for or valuing flexibility s4hana does have some flexibility it's definitely more flexible than r3 was or in some cases even ecc but in general when compared to oracle and microsoft we find that those two solutions are more flexible so the key here though is to look at where you value flexibility what business processes will you require flexibility and then assess the products against those criteria and then another area of flexibility that may or may not be important to you is within the hosting options that you have so for example sap provides multiple hosting options you can deploy in the cloud and so they give you options whereas oracle and microsoft are both pushing very aggressively to force people into the cloud which may or may not be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what your needs are so really understanding those areas of flexibility what your priorities are and assessing those three systems against those criteria are going to be important now the next thing to consider with these three systems and probably the most obvious one is the level of general functionality that the three systems provide and this is completely dependent on what your needs and priorities are if your priorities are really strong financials and gl and accounts payable accounts receivable sap may be the best fit and oftentimes we find clients that will value that functionality heavier with sap than with other systems that they might be considering if on the other hand you're looking for very solid workflows and enterprise performance management and data and analytics oracle cloud is extremely strong in that area or a crm is a very important priority to your organization many of our clients that value crm find that microsoft is stronger in that area so you really want to look at what are your priorities what are your requirements and then look at each of the different parts of these three systems against those specific functional requirements and one other thing i would note here is as you're evaluating the functionality of the three systems it's important not just to rely on demos in what the sales people might tell you or what you might see in a proposal but to get quantitative objective inputs as to where the strengths and weaknesses are and how the three systems compare for example we have an internal database that tracks thousands tens of thousands of requirements for all three systems as well as other erp systems completely agnostic data that can be a good way to augment the information you might get directly from the vendor but regardless of how you do it make sure that you're comparing the functionality and the areas that are most important to you as an organization and one last thing on this front is make sure you're poking holes in the systems even if you're leaning pretty heavily towards one of these three systems you want to make sure you understand where the gaps are where the weaknesses where the shortcomings of the product in every one of these three systems as well as every other system in the marketplace by the way is going to have shortcomings and weaknesses and if you haven't identified what those are yet then you probably haven't dug deep enough into the evaluation and the reason this is so important is to not only give you more confidence in the decision to make sure that you're finding the weaknesses in all three systems but also so you can better plan for and understand what the risks of implementation are so you can have a more realistic implementation plan and budget so in addition to assessing which systems have the best capabilities and strongest functionality you also want to poke holes in the system to understand where the weaknesses are as well even though all three of these systems are largely deployed in the cloud it's important to understand the level of maintenance that's going to be required by you as an organization and what i mean by that is the technology maintenance for the most part and also the business user maintenance of the system so on the technology side you want to understand what sorts of skills and competencies am i going to need from my it department to support this product going forward and how does that compare to what i have now and similarly what sort of business competencies and business user types of competencies am i going to need to have to ensure that we can maintain the system longer term from a business perspective so really understanding both aspects of maintenance what the ongoing cost might be how well it aligns with where you are today and to the extent that it doesn't align with where you are today understanding what that gap is and what the cost and risk of getting to that point are so really look into what are those maintenance requirements and which one best fits your needs now an intangible evaluation criteria that a lot of organizations don't think about is what kind of impact is this product whichever one you choose of the three what kind of impact would that option have on your organization and in particular how would it affect the culture of your organization so for example if you're an entrepreneurial organization you've grown very quickly through acquisitions and just organic growth perhaps you have private equity funding now and you're really trying to get to the next level by creating a more common business model and common operating processes and that sort of thing then sap may be able to drive that sort of cultural impact on your organization if on the other hand you're trying to create more flexibility and create a more nimble and more agile organization if that's where you're trying to go then oracle or microsoft might be the better fit from that regard so really understand that intangible art versus science aspect of how the technology fits with your current culture and more importantly where you want to head as a culture as you look to transform your business to get you to the next level [Music] now last but not least you want to understand what your system integrator options are what sort of implementation support would you have if you chose any one of these three systems and how do those implementation options compare to one another with all things being equal you definitely want to look at how the implementation partner could make or break your potential implementation so if for example you find that oracle and microsoft are both pretty good they're pretty equal fits with your other needs that we've identified in this video then it may come down to what implementation partner do you feel most comfortable with and just as a broad generalization we find that sap has a number of very large implementers that might be good fits for larger organizations but they also have mid-tier types of providers that people don't often think about that might actually be better fits same goes for oracle and microsoft as well and one other note i'll throw into here as you're comparing these three systems is if i were to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these three channels in ecosystems in general the sap oracle and microsoft channels and ecosystems i would say microsoft is actually at a severe disadvantage there's a lot of vars and resellers out there that aren't very well regulated for lack of a better word by microsoft and it's just very fragmented so there's almost too many options to choose from and not all of them are very good some of them are good some of them are very bad and there's a lot of in between a lot of mediocre options so very fragmented space very hard to navigate but if you can find a good one and you find that the product's a good fit it can obviously be a good fit for your organization and then with sap and oracle i think the biggest challenge there is to not become too enamored by the big name implementers because unless you're a very large organization that absolutely insists on and has great experience working with these very large system integrators oftentimes that can be overkill for a lot of organizations by spending too much time and money and too much complexity in the implementation so make sure that you carefully consider the implementer options you have that are best aligned for you and use that as one of your decision criteria as well [Music] so the idea of this video is to give you an introduction to some of the evaluation criteria to be considering and some of the areas where these three systems are different and where you might be able to better separate the three and figure out which one is best for you if you're looking for more technology agnostic guidance in this front i encourage you to check out our 2021 digital transformation report it includes reviews of these three systems as well as other erp systems in the marketplace it also includes other types of implementation best practices in general in general rules of thumb that will help you through your transformation so i encourage you to check out those and other resources that have included links to below so i hope you found this information useful and hope you have a great day