UNIT4 customers see 50% time savings for ERP changes

Clear Differences Uncovered Regarding Competitors' System Rigidity; Agresso Users 'Embrace Change' Across 5 Top Change Categories

DALLAS, TX and VICTORIA, BC, March 17 /PRNewswire/ - UNIT4 Agresso (www.AgressoNA.com), a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) software company supporting Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC), today provided further industry research supporting the lower-cost change capabilities of its Agresso Business World ERP solution. Comparing the results of two surveys that UNIT4 has conducted over the past 12 months via unbiased external research companies, changes to Agresso Business World (ABW) takes half (or less) of the time required by other ERP system users.

In a 2008 survey conducted by CFO Research Services on behalf of UNIT4, U.S. finance executives indicated that the median for making small changes to their ERP systems was seven working days. The median for making substantial changes was three working months. In an identical survey of ABW users conducted in the fourth quarter of 2009, the median for making small changes was only two days. A prior study conducted by IDC released in December 2009, showed substantial business disruption occurs to non-Agresso ERP solutions for changes tied to: Business process change, financial management change, company reorganization/restructuring, mergers or acquisitions or regulatory requirements. The longer it takes to make a financial software change - the greater the disruptive impact to the organization.

Competitors: Nearly 4x More Management Involvement Needed

The survey of Agresso users also revealed that in addition to the time savings, Agresso Business World requires far less involvement from management when changes are being made. In making changes to their ERP systems, only 9% of ABW users report that senior management leads the effort. In the previous study, 26% of the finance executives surveyed said that senior managers led change efforts for their ERP systems.

Also noteworthy is that companies in the general survey required more than twice as much help from IT professionals to make changes to their ERP systems; specifically, 47 percent of the respondents in the first survey required IT professionals to take the leadership role for changes after the system was deployed, versus just 20 percent in the ABW survey.

UNIT4 Agresso's ABW software is built on the VITA architecture which is designed specifically to accommodate business change and can reduce or eliminate much of the costly IT spend that many executives have come to take for granted. UNIT4 markets its solutions specifically to companies facing ongoing business change, where the company can demonstrate a clear and measurable business advantage.

CFO Research Services, a unit of CFO Publishing LLC, initially surveyed 157 senior finance executives at North American companies in November-December 2008. CFO Research Services then executed a separate survey of 56 users of Agresso Business World, primarily in Europe. CFO Research Services used functionally identical questionnaires and executed both surveys in the same manner to ensure maximum consistency. UNIT4 is solely responsible for drawing any inferences from CFO Research Services' data gathering and tabulation.

About UNIT4 Agresso

UNIT4 Agresso in North America (www.AgressoNA.com) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UNIT4, a $507 million enterprise resource planning (ERP) company and a top six mid-market ERP software player globally. Agresso Business World is widely acknowledged as the business software solution that delivers the lowest Total Cost of Change. This is achieved thanks to its VITA architecture which allows for an unlimited amount of ongoing, post-implementation changes without the typical external IT costs and intervention that nets billions of dollars in revenue to the market leaders.

Over 2,900 companies and organizations in 100 countries deploy Agresso Business World for both operational support and strategic management. The company's role-based, Web Services and Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) enabled solutions include: Financial Management, Human Resources and Payroll, Procurement Management, Project Costing and Billing, Reporting and Analytics, Business Process Automation, and Field Services and Asset Maintenance.

The names of actual companies or products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Agresso Business World, BLINC, and VITA are registered trademarks of UNIT4.

SOURCE UNIT4 Agresso