Software as a concrete block
It casts conventional packaged ERP software in the guise of a concrete block (see picture, below), to which various additional requirements have been grafted on over the years. These add-ons, including security, business intelligence, SOX compliance and compensation management, are all shown bolted or strapped on to the original, highly inflexible, ERP block. The whole assembly looks rather fragile and extremely complex to dismantle — which is exactly the point Bhusri aims to convey.
Knowing what we know now about how enterprise needs change and evolve over time, you certainly wouldn’t set out to build ERP the way it was designed back in the 1990s. The incumbent vendors, including SAP and Oracle, are implicitly recognising this by developing new, service-oriented versions of their software. But that represents such a shift from what customers currently have installed that many of them may well decide to look what else is out there in the market. That’s what Workday is banking on. “Second half of 2008 is the tipping point,” says Bhusri, when he believes the pressure to upgrade will become irresistible.
