ERP 2020 Decision Insights

KLAS has been hard pressed to talk with a healthcare organization that has not either recently made or is currently in the process of making a decision in ERP right now. Because ERP is an older market and so many ERPs were initially implemented in the early 2000s, provider organizations are ready to make a move that gets them newer and more exciting technology. But are the cloud solutions everything they’re hyped up to be? Which companies have the most mindshare, and which are being left behind?

These questions and more are discussed in our recent ERP 2020 Decision Insights report.

Who are the players?

For many years, Oracle and Infor were the big names in ERP and controlled much of the market. In our last Decision Insights report for the ERP market, published in 2018, we saw a shift in considerations. Workday, who first appeared in a KLAS report in 2015, was beginning to receiving a lot of considerations in comparison to Oracle and Infor. As seen in the chart below, Workday considerations continued to break away from the pack throughout 2019.

But now as we are able to analyze 2020 data, the trend we have seen in ERP decisions is a closing of the gap between Workday and two historically favored competitors, Infor and Oracle. Recently, provider organizations report that Oracle has committed to going all in on the cloud. The way that Oracle customers speak about Oracle Cloud is different than the way they did before regarding their offerings, focus, and partnership. Many of the largest healthcare organizations (3000+ beds) have chosen to move ahead with Oracle.

Decision-makers are seriously considering full suite solutions which include HR/payroll, financials, and supply chain. Having an ERP suite that includes supply chain is becoming more of a priority due to COVID-19 bringing supply chain gaps to light. Because of this, provider organizations can look forward to more of a focus on efficiency and ROI.

Companies, like Premier, who are high performing but do not offer a full suite of services don’t get as much mindshare as Infor, Oracle, and Workday.

New Technology and What to Look for in the Future

Given that many healthcare organizations last implemented an on-premises ERP system around Y2K, most provider organizations KLAS hears from are now opting to upgrade their ERP with a cloud solution. Cloud products can offer more functionality and sometimes more flexibility than they have before.

Cloud technology is still relatively new, and many companies are still learning how to take advantage of the benefits it can provide. Some customers have reported that their vendor doesn’t seem to be an expert in their own cloud solution and that they are learning the system together with vendor staff. While the cloud is living up to the hype in a lot of ways, it is not the holy grail, nor is it designed to be. The cloud does offer new opportunities, but there are still going to be some bumps along the road. Nothing is completely seamless.

KLAS will publish an ERP pillars performance report later this year that will dive deeper into how the different vendors perform in the three main ERP pillars (HR/Payroll, Financials, Supply Chain). To learn more about decisions being made in ERP solutions and why, check out our ERP 2020 Decision Insights report.

     Photo Credit: Adobe Stock, jirsak