Importance of ERP dawning on European companies

NEWS European companies are realising the importance of customer orientated ERP applications and are set to dramatically increase their investment in related projects over the next two years. A report commissioned by Oracle and enterprise systems provider Bull claims European companies will increase ERP projects by 50 per cent, double the volume of business intelligence and data warehousing projects and treble the use of CRM applications in the next two years. Two out of three companies surveyed regarded integration of established ERP systems with new CRM solutions as a crucial business strategy. According to Peter Reed, marketing manager for enterprise solutions at Bull, the drive towards customer focused applications is accelerating now as ecommerce takes off and as company resources are freed from developing Y2K solutions. He said while the results of the report were positive, it highlighted a worrying trend of European companies embracing CRM applications as a cost reduction exercise rather than copying the US trend of using it as a method of customer acquisition. Speaking to silicon.com, Reed said: "Internet commerce is being promoted strongly by governments in most of Europe. However if European companies do not respond, if they do not base their applications on a growth rationale, we are creating an opportunity for US companies to take the market." The survey, conducted by IDC, was based on the IT strategies of 1,000 enterprises throughout Europe.