We are pleased to be listed on the 2020 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America, now in its 26th year.

Pardon the viniculture pun, but you might ask why is this Rootstock growing so fast? It is quite simple.  There is a convergence between market needs and the unique value proposition that Rootstock offers. Business, technical, industry and societal trends are driving the demand for Rootstock’s Cloud ERP. We offer exactly what manufacturers, distributors and supply chain organizations need to grow and compete in today’s business climate.

Here are some of the main drivers:

Companies Stuck in ERP Tar Pits

Many manufacturing, distribution and supply chain operations have clung to legacy ERP systems far longer than they should have. One characteristic of legacy ERP systems is that they are notoriously difficult to change. We call them ERP Tar Pits.  Companies get stuck on old ERP software releases and find themselves caught behind the times.  In a world where the pace of change is increasing every day, having an ERP system that is not easy to adapt to customer needs, competitive pressures and new technologies, is a competitive disadvantage.  Companies are feeling the drag legacy ERP is putting on their organizations and are making the move to avoid the same sticky fate of dinosaurs that wallowed in tar pits before meeting their demise.

Legacy ERP Just Isn’t Cool

Now legacy ERP vendors are making these companies stuck in the tar pit face reality. They are discontinuing legacy products or putting them into maintenance mode, forcing customers to finally consider implementing new systems. Even if companies choose to stay on this dead-end software, they can’t find people who understand these old applications or even want to work on them. This comes at a time when manufacturers and distributors are facing a workforce crisis and are struggling to compete for technically proficient employees. How many millennials and generation Z workers want to work with a 20-year-old ERP system? Legacy ERP just isn’t cool. It has become a business risk and is causing ERP software churn in the market.

ERP at the Core of Digital Transformation

Yes, digital transformation has become an industry cliché. But the underlying key to digital transformation is software. Companies have begun to realize that they need to think of themselves as a software company and leverage software in new ways. Software can be embedded in products, delivered as part of their services, or enable how they interact with customers, suppliers and employees. For manufacturers and distributors, an ERP system must be at the core of the company’s software strategy. Rootstock has seen a positive reaction to our low-code, business driven approach to ERP.  It allows companies to become great at creating tailored software applications, with ERP at its core. Companies that want to be more digital need to be better at continually innovating with software, and that starts with ERP.

COVID-19 Has Been a Catalyst for Cloud ERP

COVID-19 has been an unlikely catalyst for Cloud ERP adoption, as companies struggled to support remote workers with legacy ERP systems and grappled with how to keep their teams working together while social distancing.  It shined a bright light on the shortfalls of legacy ERP and on companies with too many manual processes (including an over reliance on spreadsheets). Not only has COVID-19 reinforced the need for speed and agility, it has redefined what business as usual will look like in the future. We’ve written a lot about why COVID-19 has been a Cloud ERP catalyst, so we won’t belabor it here, but COVID-19 has exposed Legacy ERP’s weaknesses at companies worldwide.

The Salesforce Platform Juggernaut

Rootstock Cloud ERP is designed exclusively for the Salesforce Platform.  As Salesforce’s growth continues to defy gravity and increase its penetration in manufacturing, distribution and supply chain organizations, Rootstock has benefited from more prospects that understand the value of a truly modern cloud platform.  Companies are increasingly seeing Salesforce as a platform that can support not just CRM, but ERP, Analytics and AI, along with thousands of other applications available on the App Exchange. CIO’s are now realizing they need to make strategic platform choices rather than letting multiple clouds proliferate in their companies. They want to avoid the bolted together “Frankensoft” architectures with the concoction of applications, databases and integration problems of the past. They don’t want history to repeat itself in the form of a “Frankencloud.”  They see the ROI and the strategic benefits of combining ERP and CRM on one platform. For companies making strategic platform decisions, increasingly, that choice is Salesforce.

The Time is Right for Rootstock Cloud ERP

Rootstock has the product and services that manufacturing, distribution and supply chain organizations need to climb out of the ERP tar pit, compete digitally and excel in this crazy business climate. Our ERP system provides a highly functional and configurable application, without being a burden on the IT department. Our clicks not code approach provides the speed and agility needed to react to market pressures. It allows business users to create their own processes, add analytics to aid front line workers, and even develop their own mobile applications. Companies can increase their digital wherewithal exponentially due to the power of the underlying Salesforce platform and the single data model shared by ERP and CRM.

Finally, because Rootstock Cloud ERP is a native cloud application that can be used on any device, anywhere, at any time during this new age of remote working, it’s attractive to the younger and more technically astute employee manufacturers and distributors want to attract. In other words, Rootstock Cloud ERP is cool.

So, we are pleased by this award from Deloitte and I want to thank all of our employees for their hard work and their commitment to customer success. I want to thank our customers for their support and loyalty.

Rootstock Cloud ERP has come along when manufacturers, distributors and supply chain organizations badly need what Rootstock has to offer. Rootstock Cloud ERP is right for the times.