Tuesday afternoon at CSCMP closed with a discussion of ERP versus Best of Breed solutions with Manhattan DOM and WMS customer Elektra and Gartner’s Dwight Klappich. Klappich’s opening comments touched on his view that aggressive organizations favor best of breed solutions as they provide improved functionality, domain expertise, agility, cost of ownership, integration, vision and innovation.

Jorge Perez from Elektra outlined their history – five years ago, Elektra moved from ERP to Manhattan’s WMS solution. They chose Manhattan after an inventory optimization analysis in a key distribution center showed needs that an ERP solution was not providing for them. They implemented WMS in 2005, with resulting increases in inventory accuracy within six months. Due to the great performance, they paired the solution with a best of breed retail merchandising product in 2008. Perez said that Elektra is scheduled to upgrade to Manhattan’s WMS 2010 solution in 2010.

Also joining the discussion was Pep Boys, who requires best of breed advantages due to its retail business model and high number of SKUs. They have benefitted from technology advances of TMS each year, and believe that the evolution of the company is partly due to their solutions, which allow more flexibility and better performance. International Paper also participated in the discussion, sharing updates on their ERP solution and their decision making process. Klappich closed the session with a question and answer session that touched on the differences between each company’s history, culture, needs and especially IT environments and how these factors entered into their decision-making process in choosing between Best of Breed and ERP for their organization.