Small and Mid-Sized Businesses Are Twice as Likely to Outgrow Their ERP Systems Than Larger Companies

Market Wire, January, 2008

ERP products need not only meet the business needs of today, but also those of tomorrow, especially for Small to Mid-sized Businesses (SMBs) according to the recently published "ERP in SMB: Exploring Growth Strategies" benchmark report, announced by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS). While larger companies balance growth initiatives against the need to improve customer service, SMBs are more likely to focus ERP strategies on one or the other. Those that focus exclusively on the need to improve customer service run the risk of losing sight of the impact growth has on their ERP implementation. Other findings in the report concluded that:

--  Interoperability issues escalate quickly as companies grow from $50 to
    $100 million in annual revenues

--  Best-in-Class companies make use of 45% more weighted average
    functionality and are 44% more likely to take a completely integrated end-
    to-end approach to ERP implementation than Laggards

--  The Best-in-Class are far more likely to use advanced technologies
    such as event management (16 times more likely) and embedded workflow
    management (240% more likely) than Laggards
    

"Given the maturity of ERP products today and the level of investments being made by leading solution providers, requiring your ERP solution to grow with you is not an unreasonable expectation. Yet SMBs are less likely to have implemented an ERP system they expect will grow with them; 36% expect to outgrow their current ERP solution in either the short term or long term," said Cindy Jutras, Vice President and Group Director, Aberdeen. "The selection of an ERP system has traditionally been viewed as a five- to eight-year decision yet we see few ERP installations being replaced within this timeframe unless the choice of systems was restricted by budget or foresight and resulted in limited functionality. The average age of ERP implementations in companies under $50 million is just short of eight years. As companies grow to $100 million in annual revenue, the average age plateaus at about 10 years."

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: ABAS Software, Everest Software and SAP. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4174 .

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Media Contact: Cindy Jutras Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (617) 854-5247 Cindy.Jutras@aberdeen.com