The ICAEW's IT Faculty has produced a comprehensive review of the market for financial and business software, which has revealed a static and fragmented marketplace dominated by FTSE100 accounting software provider Sage.
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The Sage Line 50 accounting product is used by 28% of businesses surveyed, and no other product is used by more than 6% of respondents.
Over 90% of Sage Line 50 users would recommend the product, the highest user rating score on the survey. Other scores included Coda’s Financials and Dream products at 74%, and Microsoft’s Navision and Great Plains products at 80%.
Over 1,000 businesses were interviewed across all size and type, and almost all respondents were chartered accountants with responsibility for financial and business software.
‘The number of CAs in business that are prepared to recommend Sage is very pleasing,’ said Paul Stobart, MD of Sage. ‘The survey looks comprehensive, and they’ve spoken to CAs in business, a sophisticated base.’
Despite Sage’s performance, Microsoft Business Solutions UK general manager Simon Edwards thought that Great Plains and Navision were in a position to win ‘significant market share’ among medium-sized businesses. ‘The opportunity, and the challenge, is the sheer diversity of customer needs in this segment of the market.’
Larger business software products, such as those provided by Oracle and SAP, scored the lowest user recommendations.
‘Larger companies thought that at a certain size they have buy these big ERP products,’ said Dave Turner, CODA international marketing manager. ‘Implementing them creates a lot of external cost, and internally it has a lot of disruption and resource to set it working. They end up changing their business to fit the product, rather than the other way around.
‘The reality is that when it comes to getting benefit from the products they are very big and cumbersome.’