The one-size-fits-all approach of legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems continues to frustrate mid-market retailers, where thin margins leave little room for slow or rigid software.
Most traditional ERP platforms were designed for large enterprises, pushing small and medium-sized businesses into systems that are overly complex, costly, and difficult to adapt.
As a result, many smaller retailers believe they lack the capacity to manage multiple information and communication technology (ICT) suppliers, contracts, and licenses, while still protecting their business from emerging challenges.
Morgan Browne, founder and CEO of Enterpryze, sees the ERP industry as broken and often left by the wayside. He believes the answer is automation systems built for small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are simple, practical, and designed to enable growth rather than overwhelm it.
ERP software helps SME retailers centralize inventory, sales, and finance in a single system, boosting efficiency, cutting costs, and enabling data-driven decision-making. It also provides the operational context that makes customer relationship management (CRM) more effective, helping prevent lost sales caused by incomplete or delayed information.
“The ERP industry’s slow pivot toward SMEs is less about a single constraint and more about a combination of legacy business models and legacy technology reinforcing each other,” he told the E-Commerce Times.
Big Build and Limiting Architecture Root Causes
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According to Browne, the top three requirements for an efficient, fit-for-purpose ERP for SMEs are ease of use, quick deployment, and a serviceless, cloud-native platform. As a cloud-native solution rather than an on-premises ERP platform, it offers automatic monthly updates with no downtime, minimal maintenance, and no disruptions. This type of ERP enables businesses to operate smoothly year-round.
He sees the contrast as similar to the shift from VHS to Netflix. Why invest in purchasing, maintaining, and upgrading outdated systems when businesses can instead subscribe to a cloud-native service that evolves and improves seamlessly?
“For companies outgrowing basic finance tools or juggling siloed systems for CRM, inventory, and operations, an ERP platform needs to enable visibility in real time for full control over inventory, cash flow, and customer interactions,” he explained.
From a business model perspective, major ERP providers serve large enterprises with big budgets, long sales cycles, and highly customized deployments. SMEs fundamentally challenge this model. They expect fast time-to-value, predictable pricing, minimal consulting, and software that works without dedicated IT teams.
“Serving SMEs profitably requires lower implementation effort, standardization, and automation,” Browne countered.
Why Legacy ERP Still Fails SME Retailers
Incumbent ERP platforms were initially designed for on-site environments, heavy customization, and single-tenant deployments. These systems are inherently complex to implement, difficult to update, and costly to maintain, Browne noted.
Retrofitting them for SMEs involves stripping features rather than rethinking usability, speed, and automation from the ground up. As a result, platforms offering lighter versions of enterprise systems still carry enterprise complexity.
Browne said that legacy systems that migrate to cloud ERPs essentially replicate the same architecture in the cloud without rethinking fundamental design elements, such as real-time scalability and deployment simplicity. That architectural carryover explains why truly cloud-native platforms matter for SMEs, rather than simply moving legacy complexity into the cloud.
“Platforms like Enterpryze, built natively for the cloud from day one, take a different approach: multitenant architecture, continuous updates, API-first integration, and automation designed into the core,” he explained about how his company eases the ERP pain for SMEs.
Rather than adapting enterprise systems downward, cloud-native ERP rethinks financial and operational workflows to account for the realities of SME scale, delivering simplicity, speed, and resilience without sacrificing capability.
Broken ERP Ecosystems Fragment SME IT
Browne suggested that a “broken” ERP ecosystem is one of the main reasons SMEs end up drowning in ICT suppliers, licenses, and disconnected systems. ERP platforms feed on large enterprises with deep pockets, long planning cycles, and dedicated IT teams. When those same systems are pushed downstream to SMEs, they do not fit.
“The result is fragmentation by default,” he said.
It creates a “complexity tax” that shows up as obvious costs: multiple subscriptions, integration fees, consultants, and ongoing support. But the hidden costs are far more damaging to growth.
For instance, data becomes siloed and inconsistent, forcing teams to spend time reconciling numbers instead of acting on them. Decision-making slows because leaders no longer trust real-time visibility across inventory, cash flow, and customers. As a result, errors multiply, quietly eroding profitability.
“Because traditional ERP is too expensive, too slow to implement, and too complex for most SMEs, many businesses postpone adopting a single, integrated system. Instead, they patch together multiple point solutions, such as one for accounting, another for inventory, another for CRM, spreadsheets to fill the gaps, and manual processes to connect them all,” Browne said.
Each tool adds another vendor, another license, another login, and another integration to manage. The ecosystem becomes fragmented not because SMEs want it that way, but because the core ERP system that should unify operations is inaccessible to them, he added.
When Traditional ERP Fails Under Pressure
Browne offered a real-world scenario in which a traditional ERP failed an e-commerce business during a sudden supply chain shift. A mid-sized e-commerce retailer faced a sudden supply chain disruption that delayed shipments for six weeks.
That meant moving fast to adjust purchasing strategies, shift to alternative suppliers, and recalibrate inventory levels. In a legacy ERP environment, the service model becomes the bottleneck. These systems require personalized implementation and customization.
The vendor’s business model depended on consulting services and ongoing support. It needed urgent changes, such as new supplier codes, adjusted reorder points, or expedited workflows, that it could not implement itself. Instead, it had to wait for the vendor’s services team to prioritize the request, implement the change, and deploy it.
In a crisis, when cash flow was tight, and every week of delay cost money, the dependency was crippling. By the time the vendor’s team made the necessary adjustments, the business already lost market share to competitors with more agile systems and wasted cash on consulting fees just to keep operations running.
“A cloud-native, automated ERP allows the business to adapt instantly, making changes itself, deploying updates immediately, and staying resilient without waiting for external vendors,” Browne explained as a solution.
Why Automation Changes How ERP Works
Browne described how an e-commerce owner is impacted differently by a management system and an automation system. It is the difference between knowing what happened and having the system actively run the business with you.
A traditional management system primarily records data, capturing orders, invoices, inventory movements, and bank transactions, then presents them in reports or dashboards. An automation system, by contrast, is action-oriented. It does not just store information. It uses AI-driven logic to trigger outcomes.
In an e-commerce context, this means businesses can generate purchase orders automatically based on demand signals, inventory levels, and sales velocity. Bank transactions are matched and reconciled without manual intervention. Invoices are scanned, validated, and posted intelligently. Potential errors such as pricing anomalies, duplicate invoices, or unusual spending patterns are flagged automatically rather than discovered weeks later.
The rise of technologies like ChatGPT has fundamentally shifted expectations. Business owners now expect systems to understand context, surface insights in real time, and reduce manual effort across every function, Browne observed.
“AI-powered ERP platforms embed this intelligence at the core, enabling capabilities such as demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and predictive cash-flow insights,” he concluded.
