Unit4 Connect 2016, Amsterdam, Netherlands, April 06, 2016 – Unit4, a fast growing leader in enterprise applications for service organizations, today released Unit4 Business World On!, its biggest release ever, delivering next generation Cloud ERP plus industry specific solutions such as Professional Services Automation and Student Management.MyPOV – Good intro summary, always good to see vendors going for new records, congratulations on the ‘biggest release ever’ with BWO!
At a time of rapid digital transformation, services organizations need to empower their people to be more productive. Business World On! is designed to address the back and the front-office business processes of Professional Services, Education, Not-for-Profit and Public Services organizations, so they can apply new thinking, new strategies, and new actions to address opportunities and challenges. This deep industry focus will enable customers to improve their services, benefit from faster time to value become more competitive.MyPOV – Good to see early mention of industry focus, the focus being on four verticals. Vertical functionality comes usually as an afterthought after horizontal releases have been shipped, it’s good to see a welcome change delivering vertical capabilities with the first release of a new software product. We will have to check on the depth of the vertical capability – maybe later in the press release already. .
Business World On! fulfils the promise of self-driving business solutions which free people from repetitive tasks and allow them to focus on high value activities. Through that it delivers more productivity to services organizations and offers great flexibility as all business capabilities are completely accessible via a mobile app. Combined with market leading collaboration for teams and differentiating people-centric innovation, it is also one of the most intuitive, easy to use systems on the market.MyPOV – Good to see the reference to the vision of self driving business software mentioned here, and having it defined. Remarkable is as well that all functionality is available on the mobile platform, too. Likewise like vertical capabilities, mobile enablement is all too often an afterthought, good to see mobile support in the first release of BWO!
Unit4 Business World On! is built on Unit4’s People Platform Premium Edition, which is the technology foundation for Unit4 applications, enabling self-driving capabilities based on predictive, event-centric and pattern recognition technologies.
The People Platform Premium Edition provides customers with various technical capabilities such as an open integration layer and a composite app development kit for customers and partners to build applications and processes on top of Unit4 applications. Unified workflow allows for applications in the Unit4 eco-system to seamlessly work together to support processes spanning across different departments and partners.MyPOV – Good to understand that BWO! Is built on top of People Platform Premium Edition (PPPE), and good to see that PPPE is extensible for customers and partners. Again, extensibility comes often as a later addition, kudos to Unit4 to have this in the capability in the first release of BWU!.
“We’re redefining enterprise software for services organizations with service, people and industry specific needs,” said Jose Duarte, CEO of Unit4. “We’re delivering a completely new software experience to these organizations. Modern, simple to use, fully mobile business solutions which address the front-office and help differentiate. Our customer’s people will be freed from repetitive tasks and empowered to focus on what’s important – supporting their people to deliver best in class services to their customers.”MyPOV – Good quote by Duarte, describing what BWO! Does and how it benefits customers. Who doesn’t not want to get rid of repetitive tasks?
Unit4 customers are excited about this new release:
“We have a young and agile team demanding consumer grade experience for enterprise software. We are thrilled about the mobile access to all capabilities of Unit4 Business World On! A perfect mobile user experience is what our people have been waiting for!” – Andreas Deick, CEO of Cologne Intelligence.MyPOV – Always good to see customer testimonials on a product launch press releases, which usually speaks for a more mature first version of product, at least for customer involvement in the product design and creation process.
“We are growing and expanding internationally at a fast pace. Therefore we need scalable business applications providing consumer grade user experience. We partnered with Unit4 to benefit from powerful Self-driving ERP solutions!” – Kai Siersleben, CEO, Control€xpert
Business World On! Is available on May 2nd. Customers interested in an on-premises solution can get the “cloud-at-your-speed” Business World On! Site Edition, which allows them to start on-premises and seamlessly migrate to the cloud when they choose.MyPOV – Good to see a soon happening availability date. Unit4 is no exception to all other ERP vendors with existing on premise business to both offer a cloud based version (in partnership with Microsoft possibly, as announced last year) or to be delivered on premises.
Overall MyPOV
Always good to see innovation, and good to see new ERP suites being built from the ground up or moved to platforms that take advantage of the modern technologies of the 21st century (here the case). Now it will be come to see how much functionality is in the early versions and how compelling it will be for existing Unit4 customers to upgrade to BWU! As well as how attractive the new releases are for non Unit4 customers. There is plenty of opportunity in the market – we will be watching.
