New enterprise software companies like Salesforce.com, Taleo, Workday, and others are disrupting the traditional ERP market by offering sophisticated, flexible, and easy-to-use applications. These systems are focused on specific functional areas: finance, procurement, supply chain, HR, sales and marketing.
Fitting in these applications into the legacy ERP system is what we call today “hybrid ERP”. The resulting ecosystem is a “fit-for-purpose hybrid ERP software” and it can have a multitude of combinations customized for the company’s needs.
Therefore, new operations are linked to the legacy ERP to form the Hybrid ERP:
- Web and mobile storefront
- Sourcing and vendor contract management.
- Contingent workforce management.
- Workforce management and recruiting.
Source: Strategy& analysis
The Saleforces.com-like applications are incorporated into the hybrid ERP and are replacing the classic/traditional view of the system as organizations are becoming more flexible and more mobile. These new capabilities are integrated in the traditional ERP software ecosystem as “hybrid ERP” systems to enable specific functions needed by the evolution of certain processes. For instance, the human resources function because recruiting process is changing, and e-commerce to operate with greater agility and independence from old-style IT companies.