"My view is that with the service enablement, as we have performed through the introduction of Enterprise SOA at SAP, ERP, in combination with a middleware platform like NetWeaver, becomes the next Enterprise platform. In a sense, this combo 'ERP Platform' (called Applistructure or BPP by the analysts) becomes the enterprise equivalent to Windows for the back-end processes," Agassi said in an e-mail response.

Strategy and the stack

But platform is only one of the issues that threaten ERP's continuing relevance today. The other is the question of who gets to supply the enterprise with the next round of strategic applications.

According to Checketts and Greenbaum, line-of-business executives in mission-critical areas like supply chain, spend management, procurement, and retail believe that the disparity in capabilities between what an ERP vendor can offer and what a best-of-breed vendor can offer is large and the ROI big enough that it makes sense to buy best-of-breed. For example, ERP applications don't do well with applications related to the procurement of complex services that rely on sophisticated requirements that resist easy cataloguing, Checketts says. Smaller vendors that really understand their space, however, can address such challenges using SOA to build certified applications that integrate with SAP, Checketts says.

Core strengthening or brain surgery?

E2Open is one example. The best-of-breed supply chain management company offers a SaaS-based extended supply chain, inter-company solution that Oracle and SAP don't handle as well, Greenbaum adds.

Fundamentally, ERP and the back office focus on core data objects that, over time, it perfected. Human Resources has as its core data object the employee record. ERP itself has the bill of materials. Finance has the general ledger.

There are a lot of core data elements, however, that have never been automated, Greenbaum says. If you are a big box retailer or a Starbucks and your business depends on growing the number of retail outlets, then the retail contract for the lease and lease management turns out to be a key strategic object.

"Nothing in the ERP system touches that," Greenbaum says.

But Agassi sees a danger in going off the reservation. "Core processes require a certain semantic consistency that is certified by a vendor and compliant with authorities. You do not want your general ledger going out of whack just because you connected a Web service the wrong way to a process that was assembled from multivendor pieces. Think of the set of core processes and the master data they require as the part of the brain that takes care of the involuntary actions of our body -- like breathing and digesting. You do it, but you don't think about it, and you definitely don't want anything messing around with that part of the brain."

And Agassi may have an ally among one of the largest enterprises in the world.

Raymond Repic, Chief Techmical Architect for Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), understands the move to best-of-breed on a number of levels. Repic notes that disparate application integration used to translate into expensive propositions but options now exist to help ease this pain. The other driver for best-of-breed is increased competition.

"The overall numbers may be moving towards best-of-breed as more and more enterprises depend on more and more enabling technologies to differentiate in their markets or support internal growth initiatives," Repic says. For companies that don't require bleeding edge technologies to support required business operations, though, the trusted partner model may be preferred. In this model an enterprise selects a small handful of technology companies to become business partners for IT solution enablement. When they have a new business need that comes up, they first talk with those partners on how to provide for the need. If that partner can provide for "mandatory requirements", then they would look to proceed with their partner, assuming financials are all in alignment, according to Repic. "I don't envision CCE moving away from its ERP decisions any time soon."