I recently presented our latest SYSPRO Product Roadmap to the market and we focused on what keeps business owners awake at night and what functionality benefits they crave in their ERP solution.
I think the following quote underlines the rationale and drive behind our Product Roadmap and product development cycle.
“Inventors who operate without user needs firmly in mind are inventing in the dark” (Roger Martin, Rotman magazine.)
But, let’s look at our industry and how it shapes our product development plan for the next 2-3 years, as this assists us in identifying business needs, future technology trends and what functionality our customers need.
Globalization of business is increasing with customers growing their businesses internationally. Increasingly we also see old business models are being disrupted and new ones created by a user-driven ecosystem of modern computing.
We are seeing a nexus of converging forces – social, mobile, cloud and information building upon and transforming user behavior while creating new business opportunities.
Other key trends include Cloud no longer a nice to have but a vital part of ERP offerings. The Internet of Things and AI are creating a sea change that is boosting productivity and automation and Analytics and ease of use are also vital for new product development.
So What Does our Business Owner Crave?
- Instant actionable insights into the business
- Accurate and reliable information for informed decision-making harnessing predictive analytics and AI
- Up-to-date planning and forecasting
- The ability for segmentation on-the-go across multiple locations and dimensions
- Ease of use and an intuitive user experience (UX)
It turns out they crave all of the above. As a business owner, he/she needs their company to adapt to technology innovations rapidly and an ERP solution partner, like SYSPRO, to enable this and future-proof the business.
Our product pillars five key attributes include improved Availability and Scalability, improved User Experience and Functionality and Compliance and Governance. All vital structural parts of our total ERP solution
But we also have other recipes simmering in our laboratory.
Other Innovations in Our SYSPRO Lab
- Cloud – Less an innovation at this stage and more of a ‘’must have’’ component of any efficient ERP solution. Cloud is fast, rapidly deployed and more cost effective than the traditional on-premise solution. We announced our global partnership with Microsoft Azure earlier this year to deliver this to our customers.
- Mobility – In this competitive, connected landscape 24/7 access is non-negotiable. We will be combining our Mobile with Cloud including Point of Sale retail and Espresso functionality.
- Machine learning (AI) – Harnessing Big Data with predictive analytics enables our software to predict supply and demand, all across the supply chain.
- Bots – AI means customers deal with an “intelligent” and human-like Chatbot which answers and even anticipates their queries quickly.
- IoT – The Internet of Things using sensors will allow machines to “talk” to each other and coupled with machine learning and AI will boost productivity and harness the physical and virtual worlds on the manufacturing and distribution floor.
- Social Media format – This interface is simple to use, familiar and especially desirable for the up-and-coming Millennial business owners, especially when they want to check on the operating status of their business 24/7.
At SYSPRO we are always looking at ways our ERP solution can evolve and develop to optimize and future-proof our customers business. Watch this space as our product roadmap continues to unfold.
