The world’s top three financial accounting software vendors in 2010, based on worldwide revenue, were SAP, Oracle and Sage, accounting for 30.3 percent of the market total, according to a recent IDC report.
At the same time, worldwide revenue for the financial accounting applications market was $13.7 billion in 2010, representing growth of 4.6 percent from the prior year, according to IDC’s Worldwide Financial Performance and Strategy Management Applications 2010 Vendor Shares report.
Pent-up demand from the recession spurred renewed growth in 2010, according to the report. Companies focused their software investments on improving insight into their transactional financial management systems through business intelligence applications. That was reflected in a growth rate of 9.2 percent last year in the financial performance and strategy management applications market.
Buyers of financial accounting applications were held back by security and regulatory concerns from migrating to a Software-as-a-Service delivery model last year with the same enthusiasm as other enterprise applications markets, such as customer relationship management, human capital management, and procurement.
IDC, however, believes that it is only a matter of time and customer preferences before this market also reaches a critical mass of SaaS adoption.
“The potential for greatest growth in 2011 and beyond lies with specialized financial applications that automate finance and accounting business processes, and that improve end-user experience with business intelligence and collaboration tools,” said Scott Guinn, IDC’s research director for enterprise applications. “In addition, companies will increasingly look at Software-as-a-Service alternatives for a fit with their business requirements.”
