Branch Accounting

Tally Solutions is the winner for the eleventh consecutive year. Ace and EX make a come back to the User's Choice Club, even as the influence of custom-created solutions is on the increase; their indexed score improved from 41 to 60 this year.



With ERP (now Enterprise Business Solution) becoming widespread, the argument has been that accounting packages would no longer find a market in the large enterprises. With mini ERPs of different forms making a play for the mid markets along with the SME options from the big players, even that market was supposed to be out of the reach for accounting players. Last year, we had seriously considered discontinuing with this segment, and had included it this year only as a trial. Our findings this year have been quite on the contrary. Large enterprises do use accounting packages, particularly in their branch offices. That is why we have renamed the segment Branch
Accounting.

This is a highly fragemented segment with many players, particularly regional ones, and brands in the market. Adding to the flux is the propensity of organisations to have custom accounting solutions created for themselves-sort of reinventing the wheel, so to say. The amount of IT time and money spend on accounting solutions by Indian enterprises must be staggering to say the least.

Tally had a brand loyalty of 95 percent last year, which has come down to 83 percent this time. This lower brand loyalty has resulted in the improved showings of customized solutions of ACE and EX. Fact, which used to be in the Users' Choice Club a couple of years back, has also shown a resurgence of sorts, but still not enough to make it back to the Club.



Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, it is in BFSI that we find the propensity to use own or customized solutions more than to use standard packages. Another interesting fact is that as you go up the management ladder, the propensity to plumb for own or customized solutions is on the increase. Could this be because of senior management dissatisfaction with the existing offerings? 

In terms of brand shift, there is not much to talk about, largely because of the level of fragmentation in the market and the relatively high component of custom solutions. We started off by saying that the segment was under pressure from the ERP/mini ERP bandwagons. While it has not quite happened so far, whether the resurgent market with increased IT spends will make that happen has to be watched for.