Top 10 ERP Vendors for 2022
There is always a lot of noise in the ERP market. Some ERP vendors may have a significant market share. But you might never hear from them just because they might be busy building their product capabilities than spending on marketing hype. There is also a misunderstanding of how the ERP market works and which vendors drive the ERP market share. Also, after the first two ERP vendors, all the remaining top 10 ERP vendors struggle to grab the 3rd or 4th spot with no clear authority with their position and the market share. Finally, some companies have a large market share with edge solutions but rarely are part of the ERP deals. So unless they start grabbing ERP market share or develop deeper ERP capabilities, they don’t impact the ERP market as of today.
Introduction
Irrespective of the noise in the market, you must check the company’s financial standing as an ERP buyer. And you should check where the vendor ranks in the ERP market because it will help you understand if you should expect any disruptions with your current vendor or the product. A 10 ERP vendors list allows you to check their standing.
This article outlines the top 10 ERP vendors for 2022 that should be part of your evaluation. To finalize this list, we have analyzed hundreds of ERP vendors and their capabilities through publicly available information, along with our teams’ experience in evaluating these ERP systems for our customers.
The purpose of this article is not to recommend these vendors. You must carefully analyze your requirements and find a suitable vendor to help build your enterprise and information architecture with their products. And your goal should be to remove as much vendor coupling as possible and build a vendor-agnostic architecture. The more your architecture depends on the vendor, the higher the clout they will have in the negotiation. And your business model will rely on them. Also, note that this article lists the ERP vendors instead of the ERP products. Even if a vendor may have a dominant product but may not have as large a market share, they will score lower based on the criteria outlined below.
Criteria
- Overall market share attributable to ERP offerings
- How large is the market share of this company in the ERP market? The higher the market share, the higher the company ranks on our list.
- Potential growth/funding/valuation
- How much was the last funding round? How much did they sell for? And how much was it valued in the last deal? The higher the valuation, the higher it ranks on our list.
- Product and acquisition Strategy
- Which company did they acquire last? Was it to fill a strategic hole in the ERP product portfolio? The more aligned the acquisition strategy with the ERP, the higher it ranks on our list.
- Depth of cloud-native capabilities provided out of the box
- How behind are they with their cloud-native capabilities? The more advanced the capabilities, the higher it ranks on our list.
- Product mix to support best-of-breed or full-suite architecture
- The more complete the portfolio with different models such as best-of-breed architecture with the ability to win deals with follow-on products, the higher it ranks on our list.
- Company ownership
- Owned by a PE company? The strategy may change with the new owner. Owned by a strategic long-term corporate investor or an enterprise software company? The more the vendor is aligned with the investment firm’s strategy, the higher it ranks on our list.
10. Odoo
Odoo is one of the best ERP vendors for companies starting their ERP journey. And they need an alternative to QuickBooks that is richer and deeper in ERP capabilities. The products’ design is simple, just like QuickBooks, and allows founders and startup executives to implement it without expensive implementation dollars with other comparable systems such as Acumatica or NetSuite.
The company recently received $225 million in funding and received unicorn status and valuation at $2.3 billion. It makes it closer to how much they valued QAD and Deltek during their sale. Both were closer to $2B. It’s almost surprising to see how quickly Odoo has grown and is valued half of Epicor’s valuation in the last deal. Also, Odoo has received much higher funding than Acumatica, and its valuation is much higher than Sage Intacct.
While the company has many different offerings and services such as website development and accountant finder services that might not be attributable to the ERP offerings, Odoo is a vendor to watch. They are especially a vendor to watch if they can beef up their industry functionality to compete with Acumatica, Sage Intacct, and NetSuite in the upcoming years. In addition, Odoo boasts over 7 million users on the platform. Similarly, Zoho has been trying to compete in this space with a similar model and has far more influence on the accounting community. But Odoo seems to have more influence on eCommerce and Industry4.0 communities concentrated by developers with technical skills. For these reasons, Odoo lands at number 10 on our list of the top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
9. Acumatica
It’s hard to get a spot among the top 10 ERP vendors when their revenue may be under $100 million. But Acumatica is one of three cloud-native ERP vendors along with NetSuite and Sage Intacct. While there has been a significant discrepancy between Sage Intacct’s valuation at $850M and NetSuite at $9.3B, their number of customers wasn’t too far off.
While Acumatica doesn’t have as many customers as NetSuite or Sage Intacct today, it is the fastest-growing. In addition, Acumatica has the same PE company owner as IFS. And the IFS product has a similar UX and feel as Acumatica, which makes it very likely that there may be a chance of a merger of Acumatica and IFS, which, together might make them comparable to Infor, Epicor, or Sage.
Acumatica has grown substantially in the last ten years with its product capabilities. And they are likely to get bigger to compete with larger ERP vendors such as Infor, Epicor, or Sage. That said, Acumatica is not likely to become another Salesforce or Workday. But wherever it lands, it is a vendor to be included in the top 10 list of ERP vendors for 2022.
8.QAD/Plex/Deltek/Unit4
There is no clear winner for #8 because these companies are similar as they don’t have a clear authority and strategy as the other ERP vendors. So, unless they get acquired by a large corporate investor who invests in a company for strategic reasons or a large enterprise software company, it’s very hard to assess their market position.
The vendors such as QAD, Plex, Deltek, and Unit4 are perhaps in a similar category as they are all under a billion dollars in revenue. They all are targeted for focused markets and don’t have as diverse offerings as other competing vendors such as SAP, Microsoft, or Oracle. But this makes it easier for them to compete with larger ERP vendors and win against them.
The only exception to this list would be Plex, which Rockwell Automation owns. If Plex develops deeper capabilities for Industry4.0 and beefs up its accounting and mixed-mode manufacturing capabilities, it could be a threat for Infor or Epicor. But Plex does not have as high revenue as QAD, Deltek, or Unit4. Since we don’t have a clear direction for these companies in how they will grow to compete with their larger peers, they all have a tie and land at #8 on our list of the top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
7. IFS
While IFS has a similar strategy as QAD, Deltek, and Unit4, it is higher in revenue. But it is still not in the $1B+ club. But since IFS and Acumatica are part of the same PE portfolio, their combined revenue and a potential merger might make them comparable to Epicor or Infor in revenue and market valuation. In addition, IFS and Acumatica together might create strategies similar to other vendors with data migration. So, for example, one strategy could be that you don’t have to lose your data when migrating from Acumatica to IFS.
But since Acumatica is a very different solution natively as it is targeted for distribution and light manufacturing industries, IFS will need to develop deeper capabilities in manufacturing and distribution for it to work in those industries. There is also a chance that Acumatica might continue to strengthen its products for the larger customer base. And IFS and Acumatica might segment their focus based on industries where Acumatica could be positioned for slightly more product-centric industries while IFS for service-centric industries. Now that we have a new CEO for Acumatica, another news might follow as EQT may be looking for the next growth phase for both of these companies. Because of these reasons, IFS is at #7 on our list of top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
6. Epicor
While Epicor doesn’t have a place in the $1B+ revenue club with other vendors such as Sage and Infor, Epicor has much higher revenue and valuation than their focused peers such as QAD, Plex, Deltek, and Unit4. Epicor also seems to have a superior product and acquisition strategy aligned with dominating specific micro-verticals, which are harder to win for Acumatica or NetSuite as they would require more add-ons to work in those industries.
While Epicor might not win deals as large as Infor, it has a similar strategy in the smaller accounts with providing complete Industry solutions as part of the suite instead of relying on add-ons. Epicor has also had three pillars focusing on retail, distribution, and manufacturing.
But with the acquisition of Brightpearl by Sage Intacct and Acumatica’s deeper focus on developing native integration for retail markets, Epicor is likely to lose some market share in these verticals. And so it will be interesting to see if they change their focus as they fear their cloud-native competitors. But in general, the verticals that Epicor dominates will be harder to beat due to the industry functionality they have for these micro-verticals, even in the retail and distribution industries. Because of these reasons, Epicor is at #6 on our list of top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
5. Sage
Sage is closer in revenue with Infor but higher than Epicor. It has grabbed the cloud-native opportunity with the smart and timely acquisition of Sage Intacct and has a clear strategy for market penetration and growth. With the Brightpearl acquisition, one of the leading cloud-native solutions for B2C and D2C verticals, Sage is likely to grab market share from NetSuite and Acumatica in the retail market.
Traditionally construction being Sage’s primary market, Sage may have lost some of it to Acumatica as they have been very aggressive in ruling it. In addition, Sage has one of the strongest penetration in the accounting community and is likely to be a favored solution by accountants. They would continue to enjoy this dominance only if none of the vendors that primarily target accountants, such as QuickBooks, Xero, or Zoho don’t develop deeper ERP capabilities. And it is highly unlikely except for Zoho as companies such as Xero and QuickBooks are trying to target consumerized market. The markets they are trying are the ones they can serve without consultants and not trying to be ERP vendors. For these reasons, Sage lands at #5 on our list of the top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
4. Infor
Infor’s current revenue is higher than Sage and Epicor but lower than other larger ERP vendors. Infor has a complete product suite to meet the needs of an enterprise similar to Epicor, SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft. While the products may not be as deep and globalized as SAP or Oracle, they fit the need of specific verticals.
For example, SAP has SuccessFactors for their HCM, Concur for T&E, Ariba for procurement, SAP Analytics for Analytics, SAP Cloud CPI for iPaaS, CallidusCloud for CPQ, Hybris for eCommerce, and Qualtrics for customer success. Except for Qualtics, Infor can build the architecture with the best-of-breed in Infor Rhythm for eCommerce, Infor Nexus for SupplyChain, SalesLogix for CRM, Birst for Analytics, Infor CPQ, Infor OS for iPaaS, Infor WFM for HCM.
Unlike SAP, Infor products are pre-integrated, making them compelling for organizations that don’t want to go through the pain of integrating and developing last mile functionality. For these reasons, Infor is the #4 vendor on our list of the top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
3. Microsoft
Microsoft has been aggressive in developing their cloud-native functionality for their two leading products, Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O and Business Central. Like SAP and Oracle, Microsoft has most applications required for enterprise architecture, including their dominance with Azure as being among the top two infrastructure platforms and the native integration with Microsoft 365 Suite.
Microsoft is ahead with its cloud-native capabilities for their F&O product compared to SAP and may be slightly behind Oracle. But Microsoft has a far stronger developer ecosystem that makes the availability of talent far easier than SAP. Microsoft is also at #2 in the CRM market and competes head-to-head with Salesforce. So the accounts that are likely to prefer Salesforce are likely to go with SAP or Oracle. So this puts Microsoft at a disadvantage in the ERP market. It is because of their competing interest to dominate all markets, including the companies hosted on MS Azure.
Since Microsoft does not report their ERP revenue separately, it’s hard to know their exact market share. But it’s likely to be higher than the smaller players but lower than the other ERP-focused companies such as SAP and Oracle. For these reasons, Microsoft is at #3 on our list of the top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
2. SAP
SAP still has the largest market share in the ERP market and has applications in its portfolio that may be slightly superior for the enterprise best-of-breed architecture that goes along with S/4 HANA Suite compared to Oracle and Microsoft. For example, SAP Hybris is far superior and preferred compared to Oracle’s presence in the retail market. SAP SuccessFactors has a far higher win rate and competes head-to-head with WorkDay. SAP Concur has a far higher win rate with T&E. And SAP Ariba has a far higher win rate than Oracle’s procurement solution.
But the main challenge SAP faces is that their core ERP still has a large install base on-prem, and their products are not as integrated as Oracle, Microsoft, or Infor. And, their SMB products are not as operationally complete as Oracle’s NetSuite. As a result, SAP will still retain the market share in the large accounts with the best-of-breed architecture. But Oracle is likely to have an edge that requires far deeper cloud-native operational ERP functionality.
Oracle is slightly behind SAP in revenue share for the ERP market. It’s yet to see which vendor will retain the largest market share in the ERP category, especially how the future acquisitions will shape up for focused ERP vendors and edge companies such as Salesforce, Workday, Coupa, and ServiceNow. But for now, SAP is at #2 on our list of the top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
1. Oracle
Oracle has two leading cloud ERP products in the form of Oracle Cloud ERP and NetSuite, and they are both significantly advanced in their cloud ERP capabilities. NetSuite is a global, localized solution with operationally deep capabilities, ideal for small to upper mid-market companies.
Oracle has also been winning in large accounts that require deeper cloud and operational capabilities as part of the core ERP suite. Oracle has been developing deep supply chain capabilities as part of its core supply chain solution and ERP. Features such as global trade management and supplier rebate management were traditionally available in Supply Chain focused ERP systems such as QAD. But now Oracle is building these capabilities as part of its core offering.
With the acquisition of Cerner, Oracle might get the ERP revenue from verticals that traditionally belonged to either Microsoft or Infor. In addition, Oracle is just a little behind from SAP in its ERP market share. For these reasons, Oracle is at #1 on our list of top 10 ERP vendors for 2022.
Conclusion
ERP market is highly competitive. And it’s hard to penetrate due to the barriers from existing ERP vendors. It is very difficult for newer entrants to grow and survive in the ERP industry unless they are backed by large corporate houses like Rockwell Automation or Koch that might have significant clout on their vendor ecosystems to drive the ERP deals. The other vendors, such as CRM or HCM, also create enough barriers and align with the other ERP vendors that might not have as much authority in the CRM or HCM market.
ERP market has never been a true product play. And it will never be due to the moving pieces and the political elements involved in deals. So it is in your best interest to go for the larger ERP vendors as long as they can provide the deep industry functionality you need to avoid disruptions with your product or the vendor. And hopefully, this list will provide you with a guide on how you should be investing your money, whether your goal is to build your career or set the enterprise architecture foundation for your company.
