Automating business processes has other uses apart from generating revenue, according to Vince Poon, a Hong Kong-based executive who is betting on the Philippine Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software market.
“Some objectives may not be purely for revenue. Some customers may use the ERP system for collecting data on their carbon footprint,” ZhenHub Technologies Ltd. CEO Vince Poon told the BusinessMirror.
Poon added that some firms use ERP to automate business operations and lower risks for errors or wastage. “Obviously, that should relate to profitability; but it may not be as immediate as the business owner wants it to be.”
Poon believes the ERP software being sold by ZhenHub, called “Aratum,” can still capture the burgeoning market in the country as several analysts forecast the ERP market in the Philippines to post a compounded annual growth rate of 12 percent from 2022 to 2028. Statista, in particular, forecasts the enterprise software market in the Philippines will grow by 9.71 percent beginning this year, resulting in a market volume of $552.30 million in 2028.
Furthermore, Poon considers the market potential to have been born from demand as several businesses coped with supply-chain issues, especially during the mobility restrictions against Covid-19. He is also banking on the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023-2028 as it promises the government’s mainstreaming of the use of technologies to predict supply-chain disruptions; again, as a lesson during the battle against Covid-19.
One strategy adopted by the PDP is to support entrepreneurs leveraging technology-enabled business models. The PDP also recognizes that AI-based cloud analytics and ERP will continue to expand in the next decade. Poon added that as the Philippine economy grows vis-à-vis enterprises, ERP softwares are becoming a must-have for companies wanting to scale up.
To note, ERP software connects and automates business processes: planning, purchasing inventory, sales, marketing, finance, and, human resources. What ZhenHub offers is micro-customization, so that business owners can choose among several modules to manage their supply chain.
According to Anthony Ison, ZhenHub’s Philippines country manager, they offer an “a la carte” type of menu to customers. He explained that a business owner may opt to automate first the warehouse management system and later the other business processes like inventory management, order management, transport management, finance, and up to merchants. They could install the transport management system from a business relied upon for such service by ZhenHub’s customer.
Ison added that Aratum also offers inter-operability, meaning it can work with the ERP software of other companies. However, some processes couldn’t be addressed by ERP, especially if these are bound by traditional values particularly held by family businesses.
We don’t leave until our customer is satisfied,” Poon said, adding that ZhenHub’s solution is made to adapt to the business and not the other way around. “Technology enables the process, the policy. What we can do is build exemptions in the system that would enable the business owner’s decision.
Poon reiterated that there are some things that go beyond technology. “But, at least, there’s an ERP software for most of the business processes.”
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