Early analyst coverage for Unit4 in 2022, this time with two mentions in Q1’s Constellation ShortLists™.

from Unit4 Communications March 17, 2022 | 4 min read

The Constellation ShortLists™ examine vendors in particular markets from the perspective of early adopters. Placements are determined by client inquiries, partner conversations, customer references, vendor selection projects, market share, and internal research.

Services-centric enterprise resource planning (ERP) provides financials and professional services capabilities for organizations that deliver services to customers. The most important resource in services-centric ERP is human resources. Offerings in this Constellation ShortList™ include both financials and professional services automation capabilities. The global ERP software and services market is expected to be $70.68 billion by 2027 at a 10.9% CAGR.

One of the significant shifts in the past 12 months has been the roles of journey orchestration, automation and artificial intelligence. Constellation bases the inclusion of vendors in these ShortLists on their use and integration of particular “next generation” features and technologies, considering at least 20 in each category.

At Unit4, we’re delighted that they’ve found us to be ahead of the curve in two of their ShortLists that are highly relevant to our mission – Service-Centric Cloud ERP and Enterprise Applications Platforms.

Service-Centric Cloud ERP

As organizations seek to prioritize autonomous processes for more routine workflows, along with low-to-no FTE setups in their back offices, ERPs in service-centric and people-centric industries must empower their users. Empower them to determine which functions are best served by complete automation through IPA - the augmentation of machine-lead workflows with human exception handling, and the augmentation of human-lead workflows with machine data handling. And how to best integrate human ingenuity and judgement into a framework built for our newly evolved ways of working.

This assessment of the market’s direction is great news for us, as it supports our recent strategic realignments. The People Platform (and our focus on People Experience as the primary objective and success factor for an ERP in human-centric businesses) places user journey at the heart of its functionality. Automation and AI/ML functionality aren’t just add-ons for our products; they’re a key component in achieving an experience that keeps people motivated, engaged, and able to do their work well.

ERPx (the latest and most complete expression of the People Platform’s capabilities) anticipates further evolutions in this trend. Focused on composable functionalities and experiences that empower organizations and those who work within them to create an ERP product that is completely fit for their purposes.

Our inclusion as one of the 8 solutions to know on this Constellation ShortList™ proves this strategy is paying dividends.

Enterprise Applications Platforms

In this Constellation ShortList™, the analyst highlights the disarray seen over the last few years as we struggle to agree on what 21st century best practices really are. Cloud computing brings us compute and storage capabilities that are theoretically unlimited. Networking is cheaper (and easier) than it’s ever been. And remote working and the omnipresence of connected devices such as smartphones have created an unprecedented level of flexibility in the way organizations manage their value chains.

21st century best practices can’t be based on the one-size-fits-all best practices of the past, which were written for a technological landscape that’s rapidly disappearing. Enterprises must capitalize on opportunities for customization and automation and look at every point in their value chain to discover new opportunities for positive change – in their own in-house best practices and the best practices within their industries.

This need for innovation at all points of the value chain means organizations must be equipped with an EAP capable of delivering the goods – enabling integration and extension of new capabilities and building new enterprise automations that run alongside their existing capabilities.

As before, we’re extremely pleased that the People Platform has made the cut for this 9-vendor ShortList. Our focus on ease of use and seamlessness of experience are not just feel-good messaging exercises – we see them as a vital part of the quest for an application platform that can do everything that Constellation says the future will demand of them.