"While it [Hong Kong] is a mature market, there is a re-implementation process occurring," said Earle Dinsmore, managing partner of enterprise software, Accenture. "The original installations in the late 1990's focused on transaction processing and ERP." Dinsmore added that enterprise software is starting to play a more strategic role in business, and organizations are now adding complementary solutions such as CRM and business intelligence (BI) to the mix.
Dinsmore has also seen a focal shift among large enterprise software vendors in the ERP and CRM space. "Big highly capable packages in the markets are moving down to the SME [sector]," he said. "This is a growth market which SAP and Oracle seek to capitalize upon."
Steven Hodgkinson, research director for global IT analyst firm Ovum, notes an increase in "software-as-a-service" (SaaS) implementations such as that provided by Salesforce.com. He said a government organization in Australia implemented a virtual out-of-the-box CRM solution-choosing to change their business processes to suit the system. Hodgkinson believes we'll see more of these implementations as SaaS takes hold.
"IT divisions are starting to play more strategic roles in business," states Hodgkinson. "IT budgets are not necessarily constricting-there's just been a shift in focus to IT-enabled business change." Budgets for commoditized IT products such as servers, networks and hardware are shrinking, but investment in software that can help mold the business strategically-and contribute to the top line-is increasing.