Apps Run The World reports the global ERP market at 135.9 billion USD in 2024 with 9.4 percent year-on-year growth. Oracle and SAP each held roughly 6.5 percent share. Those figures matter less than competent partners and a defensible scoring process.
Stable business models with clear standard processes benefit from established mainstream platforms.
Growing Mittelstand companies with international expansion benefit from multilingual, multi-entity platforms.
Industry-specific requirements are usually served better by specialised vendors than by general ERP suites.
Market position is the headline criterion. The real risk lies with the implementation partner on the ground.
Vendor-driven processes without arms-length assessment. Structural conflicts of interest distort the outcome.
Exit clauses are not negotiated. Switching cost in five years determines true lifetime economics.
| Criterion | SAP S/4HANA | Microsoft D365 | Industry specialist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mittelstand fit | upper Mittelstand | broad Mittelstand | deep industry fit |
| Typical timeline | 9–18 months | 6–12 months | 4–9 months |
| Exit options | complex | moderate | usually more manageable |
| DACH partner ecosystem | very large | very large | small, specialised |
In short: Established platforms are rarely wrong but often not the closest fit. From decades of advising the DACH Mittelstand the lesson is consistent — anyone asking the vendor question first is asking the wrong question.
Read next: data-driven ERP vendor scoring, decisive selection criteria, cloud vs on-premise trade-off.
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