UNIT4 claims running rival ERP costs 248% more

Supplier UNIT4 claims the UK councils running its software are spending up to 3.5 times less in annual running costs, with almost half the number of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staff supporting the software, than those running SAP or Oracle.

It bases this claim on two pieces of research;a poll of 20 UK councils that found they spend, on average, £1.2m per year maintaining other 'big ERP' systems, and another study it conducted from April to June this year that compared the annual ERP running costs reported by 54 UK councils and the number of full time IT support staff needed for its package, Agresso Business World, versus the two 'big ERP' brands.

By the lights of the second survey, you need just 0.62 staff to run Agresso versus 1.1 FTEs and 0.72 FTEs respectively to support competitor products.

Meanwhile, the average cost to maintain ERP systems for every 1,000 residents was reported to be between£1,680 and £3,024 per year and per year for the same products, versus a claimed £870 using the same measurements for its product.

"This proves that not all technology can adapt to more austere times and clearly highlights the need to consider the total cost of owning ERP as the ongoing financial burden of maintaining systems can be very high," claimed Anwen Robinson, the firm's UK Managing Director.