Epicor Prophet 21 is an ERP for distributors, allowing companies to manage their supply chain with one ERP, with industry-specific functionality, cloud-based applications to modernize operations, connected ecosystems to ensure visibility across the organization and AI-infused solutions to drive efficiencies.
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SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Score 8.5 out of 10
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SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a modular cloud ERP. Embedded with AI and analytics, it helps business run anywhere, in real time. SAP S/4HANA Cloud can be deployed either on premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid combination.
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Pricing
Epicor Prophet 21
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Custom Pricing
per month FUE users*
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Epicor Prophet 21
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Required
Additional Details
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* FUE = Full user equivalent, which allows flexible customer choice among: 1 Advanced user, 3 Core-users, or 30 self-service users per FUE. Minimum purchase is 35 FUEs.
Good for distribution organizations with warehousing. Can also support both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable, although a more thorough Accounting package is recommended. Is strong when it comes to integrating bar codes and scanners, particularly for warehouse maintenance. Prophet 21 does include a basic CRM offering. However, it is very basic, and for any real Customer Resource management, a third-party tool is best (even recommended by Epicor.)
No doubt SAP S/4HANA Cloud is the best cloud solution for SAP products which can be easily integrated, but the main issue is you can not use in other non-SAP products for getting same result. Also if you are migrating from ECC to SAP S/4HANA Cloud then it's good but if you are planning to move from legacy applications then bit complex. We are facing such issues while doing it currently.
Prophet 21 could use better management tools for its own data. The database has a tendency to bloat and over time can grow exceedingly large without administrative intervention.
The UI can be cluttered at times and the windows tend to jump into focus or drop from focus when it isn't expected causing user confusion and data entry errors.
Branding on forms and the UI is almost nonexistent. Customizations of screen aesthetics and form layout options should be easier and not require custom programming.
I've used Epicor Prophet 21 for about 12 years (in various iterations). It started out as CommerceCenter by Prophet 21 then became Prophet 21 by Activant and then Prophet 21 by Epicor. So frequently, when a software company is acquired, it stops being great. That has not been the case with Epicor Prophet 21. Over the years they've been under Epicor, the product has just gotten better and better, with major extensibility enhancements and new mobile components coming online.
The cost of SAP as an ERP is quite high and the switching costs associated with ERP systems are even higher. That being said moving from one ERP to another only happens once in a great while for large organizations. Those switching costs include retraining, IT hardware requirements, outside consultants and more
Overall, I love using Prophet 21. With a few rare exceptions, functions within the application have been streamlined so they can be used with as few clicks and key presses as possible. That's not to say they've given up any functionality. The platform is incredibly powerful; just easy to use.
SAPs usability is great. If there is one ERP where one can adjust about anything there is to be adjusted, this is SAP. This sometimes also means having to maintain some extra master data, but this is to be expected and is well worth the extra effort. We wouldn't have it any other way!
When hosted locally, you don't have to worry about outages unless the power goes out and the battery backups fail. It can also be hosted in the cloud which is as reliable as your internet connection. There's really no concern for outages in the software by itself. Outages are controlled by external factors.
I do feel like there are some screens and reports that could be streamlined. Prophet 21 likes to load features all at once when going into a program but a quicker load time into order entry, for example, is worth having a little latency while a non-essential tab that doesn't get used very often is opened.
The support is some of the worst I've seen across all the 122 software vendors we work with. Everything is offshore and it is always vague answers, links to wiki's that don't apply, and when we pay for project support they charge $200 an hour for someone who works remote from Mexico to call you on a poor quality VoIP connection that isn't all that well trained and often doesn't have basic IT skills
The technical support received by the ITT design teams and OS implementation team has been very useful in ensuring that the SAP ERP is well-tailored to our company's specific needs and operations. This coupled with the training materials, business process maps, and concept demos (sand-box demos) makes adoption easy on end-users.
The on-site training was great. I give it a 9 because the trainer was a chain smoker who had to excuse herself a lot to smoke. Kind of unprofessional. She was a very good trainer though.
I had a great time with the online training. Most of the online trainings were live which meant you had opportunity to interact with instructors. I liked trying to derail them by posting funny comments to the chat window. The only complaint I had about these is they weren't recorded for later use. Well, another complaint is that they were sometimes too short.
The overall implementation is smooth. Prophet 21 sends someone on-site for as many days as you need them to step through the initial implementation. Data conversion is the biggest trick. Make sure you get help with that portion of implementation. Also, be sure to offer plenty of training incentives to keep people coming back for more training. A little money spent up front will save you tons of headaches later.
SAP requires a lot of internal and external resources to complete its successful implementation. The cloud version requires a deeper understanding of the different capabilities of the local systems (hardware) and the connection towards your local IT team. We found several problems on our systems that we couldn't foresee before the implementation and roll out.
I have not looked at them in detail, but have received a lot of positive comments through out the industry, we're on the fence in regards to viability of cloud based solutions, but from the information we have received it seems like NetSuite has developed a good solution for the industry.
The platform utilizes advanced predictive analytics to anticipate operational bottlenecks and put them out of commission before the problems become larger. We can proactively develop effective strategies that help keep service quality in the face of unexpected changes in the market, or external disruptions, by continuously analyzing historical performance data as well as elements of the current market
Prophet 21 is very reliable. The database is robust and well designed. The application is also hard to break. If there's one feature I don't like, it's that they haven't accounted for the dreaded single quote. That's kind of the bane of Microsoft SQL's existence. They need to escape that character in every field that will accept it in the system. Otherwise, the system throws all kinds of errors and many times will crash.
