Epicor vs. NetSuite: An ERP Comparison

Comparing ERP solutions is no easy task. And the pressure to find the right solution can be overwhelming.

If you’re wondering what the major differences are between Epicor and NetSuite, you’re in the right place. Our goal here is to cut through the noise and give you the key details up-front to help you in your search.

About Epicor

Epicor provides over 15 different ERP products for a variety of industries, including distribution, manufacturing, retail and others. They have a strong user base, with 20,000 mid-size customers and offer a choice of deployment options. Most of their customers are running on-premise systems, but they’ve made the shift to cloud in recent years.

While they have multiple products that offer more choice in functionality, it’s worth mentioning that the company has been sold/acquired 4 times in the last 10 years. Major changes like this tend to trigger changes in leadership and product focus. And with so many disparate platforms to develop, there’s competition for scarce R&D dollars across Epicor. It’s worth asking for a product roadmap to get a sense of the planned lifespan for the Epicor product you’re evaluating.

Epicor Pros

• You can choose from multiple deployment options based on your needs.

• Epicor performs well in supply chain management, particularly for production, inventory and warehouse/fulfillment.

• The Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) suite offers strong risk management capabilities.

• Strong mobile functionality with the Epicor Virtual Agent app allows users to interact with Epicor Prophet 21 via voice and text commands.

• Epicor has strong native functionality to handle consigned inventory and supplier-managed inventory.

Epicor Cons

• Functionality in marketing, CRM and eCommerce is light.

• As a versioned solution, upgrades are known to be difficult with broken customizations being common.

• Each solution is a separate platform, so if you’re a distribution company that enters the manufacturing space, you’re looking at a completely new ERP implementation.

• Custom reporting requires technical expertise and will likely require a consultant to implement.

• There’s no option for self-service customer or vendor portals. The available workaround is to buy a full license for each customer/vendor and make heavy screen customizations to accommodate their needs.

• Epicor solutions don’t come with pre-loaded dashboards – business intelligence and analytics tools are available at an additional cost.

About NetSuite

NetSuite is a leading cloud ERP solution for growing companies. Like Epicor, it’s well-suited for companies in distribution and manufacturing, but also extends into services industries. As the pioneer of cloud ERP, NetSuite's focus is on delivering robust functionality without the IT overhead.

NetSuite Pros

• NetSuite is designed as a modular solution, giving you the flexibility to add new functional modules as you need them. This is a great approach for smaller companies, as you can start small and scale the solution as the business grows.

• Strong inventory management capabilities include multi-location planning, inventory visibility and lot traceability.

• Robust tax management features meet numerous government standards and regulations without the added manual effort.

• Strong CRM and marketing automation capabilities offer a 360-view of the customer and improve sales performance.

• A broad ecosystem of SuiteApp partners offers options to extend the functionality of the platform.

• NetSuite dedicates all its resources to developing a single, cohesive platform using a unified code set.

NetSuite Cons

• As a pure cloud solution, NetSuite can’t be deployed on-premise or in a private cloud. This is really only a con if you have strict compliance requirements in your industry that require greater control of your technical environment.

• You may need to extend the capabilities of the NetSuite warehouse management system with a SuiteApp extension to match the functionality that Epicor offers.

Which ERP solution is best?

We’re big believers in the right ERP solution for the right customer. It all comes down to your requirements and what you want to achieve with your new ERP system.

If you want to explore NetSuite further, we can help you through that process. As your North American NetSuite partner, we’ll do a discovery session to understand your business processes and requirements, then determine if we think NetSuite is a good fit for you.