New Unit4 CEO Sets Out Roadmap

PAC recently caught up with Simon Paris and Claus Jepsen, the CEO and CTO of Unit4 to hear about the ERP vendor’s plans following a strategic review.

Paris took over the reins of the company earlier this year, following fine years at financial software vendor Finastra, and previous leadership experience at SAP and Infor. He has since mapped out a new course for the firm, which he describes as “evolution, not revolution.”

Unit4’s core proposition will remain providing core ERP platforms – covering finance, HR and projects – for “people-centric industries.” These cover four main segments: non-for-profit; higher education; public sector; and professional services. While Unit4 has faced some headwinds in the former due to the break-up of USAID, it continues to make good progress in the other sectors, including a win with the Municipality of Breda in the Netherlands, where it will replace an on-premise system from local rival Centric.

The Municipality is among the growing number of clients that have adopted Unit4’s SaaS-native ERPx platform, which was launched in 2021. This is the proposition that Unit4 pushes towards greenfield clients, while existing clients have been encouraged to migrate towards a cloud-based platform. Progress has been good, with more than half of its 2,000 clients having made the transition, and a steady stream of migrations already planned during the next 18 months.

As PAC has explored in the past, the cloud and SaaS-based platforms present clients with a better opportunity to make the most out of Unit4’s AI functionality. This includes AVA, the conversational agent that was launched in May and is designed to help users automate ERP workflows and receive personalized recommendations. Paris believes that within just two to three years, 50% of today’s ERP interactions will be replaced with AI-driven conversations and highlights the integration of AVA into Microsoft Teams as a way to drive adoption across its user base.

Unit4’s roadmap is now being led by Jennifer Sherman, who joined as Chief Product Officer last quarter, having previously served at legal platform provider CARET. Sherman has strong experience in building out vertically-aligned products, and will work alongside Jepsen who will focus on the technology stack and AI proposition as CTO. Paris states that the company has already benefited in markets such as the Netherlands local government sector by building out pre-configured industry models and it will invest in further templates to “help it talk the language” of its target sub-sectors.

The company will remain focused on its mid-market heartland, which it defines as companies with between 200 to 5,000 full-time employees. From a geographical perspective, Europe accounts for around 85% of its revenue today, and the company’s core markets are the Nordics, Benelux, UK & Ireland, France and the DACH region. The company plans to reinforce and build out its activities in Europe through the development of its partner channel, while inorganic growth is under consideration as a way to accelerate its North American business.

Paris has lots of M&A experience under his belt from his previous roles and states that he wants to avoid moves that add market share but bring overlapping capability with its existing product set. He cites IFS as an example of a software company that has successfully filled out its positioning as a domain expert (in IFS’ case in the manufacturing sector) through investments that have added complementary functionality relating to critical industry processes.

A lot of Unit4’s momentum over the last couple of years has been driven by the cloud upgrade cycle, and Paris is now looking to put the building blocks in place to help it drive more greenfield pipeline opportunities. Doubling-down on its core sectors and midmarket segment makes sense at a time when unprecedented levels of disruption and volatility are forcing these organizations to accelerate their pace of transformation.

The competitive environment will continue to heat up with Netsuite and Workday both investing in many of Unit4’s core markets and regions. Unit4’s heritage as a European brand can help it tackle client conversations concerning sovereignty with clients on this side of the Atlantic, and it remains ahead on aspects such as AI than many regional legacy brands. We will follow the vendor’s progress with interest as the Paris era starts in earnest.