Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is expected to gain a substantially bigger market share in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in next five years. The value of this market in the GCC is estimated to reach $270 million by the end 2008, forecasts Madar Research in a new report.
The forecast is based on a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 15 percent over the period 2003-2008. ERP, which automates and integrates various internal and external business processes such as management of human resources, customer relationship, inventory and financials is a $30 billion global industry according to end-2003 estimates.
Other than deployment at large enterprises, ERP has only recently started to pick up in the GCC, and its use is still much below levels prevalent in the industrialized world. “As ERP is becoming less expensive to implement and maintain, more of GCC’s large to medium companies are investing in its component applications or modules, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM),” said president and research director of Madar Research, Abdul Kader Kamli.
“Customizable, packaged ERP suites will increasingly gain new customers from the region’s medium-sized companies. These customers are driven mainly by their need for better business information and cost savings, in addition to the need to accommodate e-business model and e-government requirements,” said Kamli. He added that globalization and international competition that full admission to the World Trade Organization will bring to GCC states in 2005 were incentives for some companies to implement ERP solutions.
The study, on the other hand, shows that lack of executive support and understanding of the benefits that ERP can deliver to GCC businesses is the strongest inhibitor for companies to adopt ERP technologies. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
