Will ERP cost more than our CRM system?

Mike
Salesforce.com has many native applications (native meaning built on the same platform as your CRM) This means you can put them in your SalesForce.com Org. this save you money as you will already know how to administrate and report on you new ERP applications. As examle we use SalesForce.com with FinancialForce that does our AP, AR and GL. Our firm LessSoftware.com provides Supply Chain Management applications to acquire mange and sell inventories. From a cost perspective we charge $69.00 per user user per month. At this time there are over 800 applications built on the SalesForce.com platform hope this helps.

Mike

It depends on many factors:
Costs for your CRM, for example...:)
Which components of ERP you need; size of firm; branch;...

Below is a list of facts collected from various studies regarding ERP systems and implementations:

Avg. Cost to Implement*
• Tier 2: $3.46 million
• SAP: $16.8 million
• Oracle: $12.6 million
• Microsoft: $2.6 million

Avg. Time to Implement*
• Tier 2: 17.8 months
• Microsoft: 18 months
• Oracle: 18.6 months
• SAP: 20 months

Project Performance
• ERP projects that take longer than expected: 93 percent***
• ERP projects that exceed original budget expectations: 59 percent***
• Tier 2: Percentage of expected value achieved 68.6% *
• ERP project delays caused by lack of business-to-business planning and integration could cost manufacturers more than $1M/month**
• 85 per cent of companies surveyed had experienced delays in roll-outs as a result of B2B integration issues (which can cost over $45,000/day)**

*In ERP software comparison, SAP scores highest, but Tier 2 competitive
Courtney Bjorlin, News Editor at SearchSAP.com
March 3rd, 2009
http://searchsap.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid21_gci1349659,00.html#

**ERP project delays cost manufacturers $1M a month
Published by GXS
September 28th, 2009
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Gxs-1047274.html

***2008 ERP Report
Panorama Consulting Group: Eric Kimberling
January 7th, 2009
http://www.panorama-consulting.com/whitepapers.html
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/erp-roi/panorama-issues-2008-erp-report-29172

With numbers like these, the question is why would you implement any ERP systems? They cost too much, take too long, and only have a 7% chance of success. There are other alternatives. If you are interested, please get a hold of me.

Steve

Mike your company needs and complexity will determine the best ERP. Since you don't have an ERP already, I seriously doubt that you need a Tier 1 ERP. There are some great mid-market ERPs that will cost you significantly less than the numbers projected above and with implementation times measured in weeks and not years.

If you are a manufacturing company, I really suggest you look at Expandable Software as we are the only full featured ERP for Manufacturers on AppExchange as Expandable integrates with salesforce.com. Easy to take a test drive or see the video on AppExchange.

If you don't have manufacturing requirements then you probably can find Financial Packages on AppExchange that can handle your accounting needs.

Fair disclosure: I am the CEO of Expandable. Just came back from a great week at Dreamforce. Lots of traction, interest and excitement at our booth.

Feel free to contact me directly on our website www.expandable.com or on LinkedIn. Also suggest you read my whitepaper on Focus.com regarding ERP Due Diligence at www.focus.com/ugr/research/finance/reference-checking-erp-selection/

Best regards,
Bob