Denis Pombriant of Beagle Research Group shares some thoughts on SAP's Business By Design and also on NetSuite.
... SAP introduced Business By Design (BBD) which I have previously commented on a little. Let me say here that it isn’t out till 2008 but that it will be fun to take a look at. At first blush it appears to be something that the installed base will like but that may not compete favorably with the likes of NetSuite or salesforce.com. SAP has time and money to make improvements but markets don’t wait around. NetSuite will have cash from its IPO — are we there yet? — soon and then the fight will heat up. Also, all those salesforce.com partners will have something to say about front and back office integration and applications that span the two. ...
... Back to NetSuite, a last thought, isn’t it amazing how they continue to carve out their niche? You keep waiting for them to go head-to-head with someone like salesforce.com but it doesn’t really happen. They’ve just introduced more vertical applications in the services and wholesale/distribution sectors and if anything they compete more with SAP than salesforce.com (as they should). But NetSuite is a native mid-market player and in a close game right now you still have to pick them over SAP and the points (recall SAP’s BBD isn’t out till sometime next year).
NetSuite, more than most other vendors, needs to start thinking about GRC issues (assuming they haven’t already). Specifically, GRC is a big enterprise idea right now but it will need to be brought down to size for the SMB and mid-market and that’s NetSuite’s sweet spot. ...
Source: Oracle, SAP, salesforce.com, NetSuite thoughts
Denis stresses the importance of GRC and I thought GRC ? What's GRC ? Fortunatly Denis did a post on GRC :
There's a new category of enterprise computing beginning to take shape and I believe it will be important to the front office and CRM. The category in question is GRC which stands for governance, risk, and compliance. Governance became a big deal when too many corporations let down their shareholders as well as other stakeholders like employees and imploded due to management misconduct. Companies like Tyco and Enron will be GRC whipping-boys and shorthand for bad management for a long time.
Source : Pay attention to GRC