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systems for financial assets (e.g.,
cash); and expenditure solutions (e.g.,
travel and expense management).
“Enterprise performance management
(EPM), which includes solutions plan-
ning, financial reporting and analytics,
is part of this overall category and is
experiencing a major shift to SaaS,”
say Forrester researchers.
Next up in terms of size and growth
potential, HR applications support a
broad range of people and talent process-
es, ranging from core administration of
employee records, benefits and payroll to
talent acquisition, employee performance,
career development and training.
“While people and talent are tra-
ditionally viewed as cost centers with
onerous compliance implications,
customer-obsessed companies view
them as a growth-oriented invest-
ment that drives customer engage-
ment,” says Forrester.
The research firm pegs this mar-
ket at $16 billion in 2015, growing by
16 percent in 2016 and 9 percent in
2017 to $20 billion.
“Significant growth is being driven
by replacement of older, on-premises
systems with SaaS alternatives as
well as by increased process innova-
tion for talent acquisition, employee
engagement and talent develop-
ment,” says Forrester. Leading ven-
dors in this segment include ADP,
Ceridian, Oracle, SAP SuccessFac-
tors, Ultimate Software and Workday.
Another relatively mature business
process application, call and contact
center software saw approximately
$12 billion in global sales last year
and is expected to grow 7 percent an-
nually both this year and next. Invest-
ment here has been driven by a need
to provide a “consistent customer
experience across various interaction
channels at various life-cycle stages,”
says Forrester. “The category has
become more complex as the array of
new customer interactions methods
has expanded, leading to consider-
able churn in the vendor landscape.”
What Forrester defines as e-
purchasing software includes prod-
ucts designed to help improve all the
stages of the buying process, such
as online procurement and sourc-
ing, contract life-cycle management,
automated spend analysis, electronic
invoice presentment and payment,
services procurement, supplier risk
and performance management, and
supplier network services. The mar-
ket (including supplier and EDI-based
networks) is valued at $7.8 billion in
2015, and is expected by Forrester to
grow by 9 percent in both 2016 and
2017 to more than $9 billion.
“Even though procurement function-
ality is typically included in ERP suites,
it remains fertile ground for specialist
vendors across the various subcatego-
ries in the segment, and it is frequently
deployed in the cloud to leverage man-
aged supplier networks,” says Forrester.
Also worth noting, PLM and SCM
are mature business process catego-
ries, with the former estimated to grow
at a 4 percent rate in 2016 and 2017,
and the latter by 12 percent this year
and 8 percent in 2017.
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