If cost is a priority then best of breed might be a better option, says Le Roux Cilliers, a practice leader with Deloitte Consulting. "Best of breed has a vital role in providing short-term boosts for business," he says. "There is an enormous focus on delivering quick benefits to business today, and an ERP module is rarely the best way to achieve that."
Cilliers points out that a cheaper, best-of-breed package might only be in place for a couple of years without ever being integrated into the overall IT architecture. No matter -- by that time the software has done its job: "Often, best-of-breed packages offer functionality that mainstream vendors won't match for a couple of years so there is a short-term benefit to niche vendors."
When Royal Mail rolled out a new customer portal in 2001, the company opted for best-of-breed CRM software rather than an extended ERP module. The software from ATG was the only product that offered all the features Royal Mail wanted, including personalisation, scalability, traffic monitoring and market intelligence.
Software not a religious war
Integration isn't necessarily a problem when using best-of-breed software, believes Paul Kelsall, Royal Mail's IS director. The portal was built using Java, which was easily linked into the company's existing back-office systems in three, 90-day projects. Since the portal went live, Kelsall's team have added almost 40 new applications to the portal, including Bills Online, which lets customers view, pay and manage household bills over the Internet. "We've been able to reduce development cycles and increase the speed we can bring new services to market," says Kelsall.
In many cases, the decision whether to go best-of-breed or ERP is taken too seriously, says Kinikin. Although it's easy to assume the ERP giants are conquering the market, she believes that CRM is really fragmenting into several different markets -- with ERP companies selling into large enterprises, while best-of-breed providers remain popular in the service sector, where there is no real installed base of ERP software. "Rather than applying any business analysis, too many companies are adopting an '‘Oracle for us' or 'We love Manugistics' position," he says. "Don't forget -- this is software, not a religious war."
