The three largest ERP system providers, SAP, Microsoft and Oracle, are the ones that most closely follow the current developments and they put in a large effort to develop their ERP systems further or acquire companies with a successful track record in particular areas of interest.
Will the smaller ERP system providers survive this shift? I think that the key to survival is to manage the challenge to develop functionality that brings the real end consumer and not only the next link in the supply chain, into the picture. The required functionality involves information sharing as well as integration.
The prerequisite for this is an open system architecture. One method to develop system functionality with the end consumer in focus in a joint effort by the partners in the supply chain is Business Model Generation.
