We both spent two decades on major implementations, often involving ERP and the surrounding applications for product data, purchase-to-pay, warehousing and planning. Always in small teams, close to both the ERP and the systems around it. Our perspective is therefore not theoretical. We have seen these landscapes from the inside, repeatedly.
With every programme, one insight became clearer: most companies use only a fraction of their ERP. And the specific processes handled by satellite applications? Those tools often disappoint in practice as well — too cumbersome, too generic and too expensive for what they actually do.
That is how the idea emerged. An ERP works perfectly well as a transaction engine — often even a smaller one than you have today, with all the benefits that brings. The truly specific processes that no standard package covers well should be purpose-built. The step from an ERP transaction into such a focused process is almost always more manageable than it appears.
The problem was that building a small custom application used to be financially unjustifiable. That is exactly why standard SaaS satellite applications with licence and management fees emerged. Entirely logical. What is no longer logical is accepting that compromise given today’s possibilities.
