Initial findings of the survey found that:

· Interoperability issues escalate quickly as companies grow from US$50 to US$100 million in annual revenues
· Best-in-Class SMBs are 60% more likely to centralize selected functions using shared services, resulting in twice the reduction in administrative costs
· Best-in-Class SMBs have 96% inventory accuracy and produce 97% complete & on-time shipments.

The selection of an ERP system has traditionally been viewed as a five to eight year decision. However, Aberdeen finds few ERP installations being replaced within this timeframe. The average age of ERP implementations in companies under $50 million is just short of eight years, thus requiring your ERP solution to grow with you is not an unreasonable expectation.

“The continual development of core business functions is a significant part of the abas Business Software,” explains Werner Strub, CEO of ABAS Software, “customers using abas Business Software don’t need to worry that their system will become outdated in a few years because every year we rework around 30% of the complete software code. This means that abas users have a completely new software with state of the art technology every 3-5 years.”

Cindy Jutras, Aberdeen Vice President and Group Director and author of this report cautions, “Do not let your maintenance dollars go to waste. While it may be acceptable to skip a release or run one release behind the most currently available, do not let your implementation lag significantly, leaving functionality and technology improvements largely unused."

The research, based on a survey of more than 1140 companies worldwide and spanning multiple industries, shows readers in-depth survey results and presents a road map for SMBs seeking to optimize their ERP system usage, or effectively implement an ERP system for the first time, through Best-in-Class (BIC) ERP implementation. This report is valued at US$399; however, for a limited time a complimentary copy of the report, underwritten by ABAS, is available by following this link:
www.aberdeen.com

ABAS Software is a leading provider of flexible enterprise resource planning (ERP) and eBusiness software for the SMB market. Founded in 1980, ABAS serves over 2,000 customers worldwide, providing solutions in 28 languages. The software is developed in-house at the company’s headquarters in Karlsruhe, Germany, then distributed to the customer through a partner network. ABAS collaborates with 50 partners in 63 locations and holds a minority interest in 20 of these partner companies.

ABAS Software is focused in the development of its trademark abas Business Software (ERP, PPC, MRP, eBusiness), an ERP solution designed for small and mid-size companies. Abas Business Software includes abas ERP for production, abas Distribution for wholesale and distribution companies, and the eBusiness solution abas eB.

The abas Business Software is platform independent. It can run on Linux, Unix and Windows. ABAS has supported the open source operating system Linux on the server-side since 1995. Approximately 80% of all abas installations to-date are based on Linux.