With Australian enterprises seeking to develop and deploy more custom applications in the cloud, 56 per cent are now already using or investigating Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), a new study by technology analyst firm Telsyte has found.
The Australian Enterprise Applications Market Study 2015 found that almost a third of organisations are currently using custom, in-house developed software to satisfy a business need, indicating latent demand for PaaS development environments.
“Cost, ease of use and emerging technologies like the Internet of Things and mobile apps are changing the way CIOs think about enterprise applications,” Telsyte senior analyst Shayum Rahim said. “PaaS empowers organisations to create role-based applications customised for business requirements as well as mashups utilising APIs.”
The big drivers for custom application development include improving business process (53{db8ca4bbfe57dc8f9b6df9233a3a6c04f4968125edf9bb330d4f787c3a87cd09}), unique application requirements (46{db8ca4bbfe57dc8f9b6df9233a3a6c04f4968125edf9bb330d4f787c3a87cd09}) and to create competitive advantage (37{db8ca4bbfe57dc8f9b6df9233a3a6c04f4968125edf9bb330d4f787c3a87cd09}).
And with growing usage of cloud-based point solutions, ERP feature use is the loser, with Telsyte finding nearly two-third of organisations using less than half the features available. One-third of organisations require further customisation to their existing ERP software.
“We are seeing a growing wave of cloud-based applications being used as point solutions for everything from HR to expense management, further accelerating the decoupling of the ERP suite as solutions are offered across multiple platforms and devices,” Rahim said.
Telsyte believes the new frontier for ERP will be in mobility and the Internet of Things as sensors on everything will transform business processes.
“From machine breakdown prevention and real-time error correction in manufacturing processes to real-time inventory control and predictive replenishment in warehousing and distribution, ERP needs to undergo changes to meet the challenges of digital disruption,” Rahim said.
Telsyte covered over 100 vendors and service providers in the study.
