WBSP286: Grow Your Business by Understanding Aptean's Capabilities, an Objective Panel Discussion and Weekly Digital Transformation News Stories

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Growing through acquisition is not a new strategy. Infor started it. And now several companies are following, especially the PE-owned ones such as ECi and Aptean. PE companies pursue this strategy in the hope of gaining quick market share through edge products or specialized products purpose-built for specific industries. Most of these products are typically built by companies that were cash-starved, and they had to cut corners to survive and sell at a lower price than their bigger competitors. Typically there are three pieces that are absolutely critical for the success of a product: 1) code/features, 2) infrastructure, and 3) documentation. Since the companies would be able to notice differences if they cut corners in the code and infrastructure, the most obvious choice to cut down would be on documentation and thinking through the design, which typically requires a lot of investment. While the premise of integrating several specialized apps might seem compelling on paper, your users will never get the same experience as they would if they were using a product in one piece. One such company is, Aptean, which is still trying to grow through acquisition with no clear strategy for its product portfolio and roadmap.

In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry experts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to discuss major stories in the ERP and digital transformation space and an objective and independent review of Aptean's capabilities. We covered several grounds, including the core focus of their products and acquisition strategy, their corporate and cloud-native strategy, and their target market. Finally, we reviewed their history, where their portfolio was originated, and their strategy compared to other companies that grew through acquisitions similar to Infor and ECi.

For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.