Published on the 04/02/2026 | Written by Heather Wright

As ERP steps back into spotlight…

After several years of quieter investment and a post-pandemic focus on ‘keeping the lights on’, 2026 is likely to see ERP back in the spotlight – but it’s a reimagined ERP landscape more reflective of the realities of organisations, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.

A range of ERP offerings are reaching critical end-of-support or end-of-life deadlines, and while ERP implementations often tread a ‘like for like’ pathway, Neha Ralhan, Gartner senior principal analyst covering ERP, says this time around, for many A/NZ organisations it isn’t about simply replacing aging systems. It’s about re-imagining what ERP should look like.

“As a whole it is a shortcut to provide what previously would have been years of work of customisation.”

Ralhan told iStart organisations are taking strong audits of their existing solutions and deciding whether to continue with the vendor on a new iteration – or go on a new journey. Driving, and aiding, that reinvention is the ‘future of ERP’ – in Gartner terms a shift away from monolithic, rigid, on-premises offerings to composable, cloud-native architecture designed for agility – AI, rising marketplace innovation, maturing cloud ecosystems and geopolitical pressures.

“It’s really allowing organisations to look at different permutations and combinations.”

And this is where marketplaces step up – not as a bolt-on feature, but as the mechanism to enable a new ERP design philosophy.

Gartner says ERP vendors are increasingly shifting their innovation model, delegating the development of deep industry-specific functions and localisations to partners, getting clients to source these critical capabilities through marketplaces. And those marketplaces are becoming a critical differentiator as foundational core capabilities become commoditised and enterprises look to third-party solutions to fill functional gaps, especially as standardised ERP platforms pare back and limit customisations.

In simple terms, marketplaces are becoming the new battleground for ERP differentiation, enabling organisations to shape ERP around the unique reflection of their business rather than being forced into whatever the core suite offers.

Ralhan says they’re also likely a reaction to the standard processes vendors have pushed companies into for years, and a reflection of the market’s accelerating move to cloud.

For A/NZ organisations, ERP marketplaces are a global alignment play: A way to keep a stable core while building capability on top through a uniform ecosystem of extensions. That matters locally because as Ralhan notes, Australia and New Zealand are rarely considered a core market by large ERP vendors. Thriving ERP marketplaces can help ‘close that gap’ by accelerating access to capabilities and industry depth.

“Marketplaces allow for the innovation, that competitive advantage and industry specific level of functionality that core solutions didn’t allow for, and that’s really exciting especially for A/NZ organisations which are sometimes a little bit more unique.

“While there might be some additional requirements needed for local organisations, as a whole it is a shortcut to provide what previously would have been years of work of customisation.”

Availability, Ralhan says, is no longer a barrier either. “If it’s available in North America, nine times out of 10 it will be available in A/NZ. There really shouldn’t be a lag in terms of the availability for different regions.” Albeit, some customisation will still be required, just not the swathes previously needed, compressing customisation into a much faster pathway.

Moving – but not removing – risk

While Ralhan believes marketplace offerings will bring big benefits to local businesses, it’s not without risk.

“It’s not just a plug and play scenario, as much as vendors would sometimes like to tell you that,” she says. “For example, it brings about risk in terms of – hypothetically – what if one marketplace solution is no longer supported? What then happens to the workflow of your organisation? How does it work in terms of security? Are the same security guarantees in play when it comes to a marketplace solution?”

These questions point to the real organisational maturity test: ERP governance – something Ralhan says local SMEs, like their global counterparts, ‘aren’t great at’.

“It has improved and the A/NZ market has become more sophisticated, but how do you evaluate, audit, support security, all those things that previously will have been just part of your stock standard core solution? Who manages it? That’s all part of the discussion.”

In other words, marketplaces expand choice, but they also expand responsibility.

Where marketplaces could have the most visible impact is in industry depth.
Ralhan says a thriving marketplace allows organisations to choose a “household” ERP name for the core while still catering for the ‘intricacies’ of a particular industry through best-of-breed additions.

For sectors like mining, agriculture, manufacturing, wholesale distribution and hospitality, this could translate to faster access to specialised process support without a custom build.

“It allows organisations to have and maintain that competitive edge via their technology procurement option – and choice in this way isn’t a bad thing.”

There is, however, a competitive ripple effect. While choice might not be a bad thing, for local ERP vendors, it will mean even greater need to innovate and sharpen their core propositions to stay relevant.

So how should decisionmakers evaluate marketplaces and the more niche offerings?

Ralhan stresses treating marketplace capability as a [in italics] selection criteria, but not the deciding factor. Don’t pick a vendor because of what’s in its marketplace today, because the market is evolving rapidly. Evaluate where it is heading: the vendor roadmap, partner momentum and governance model you’ll need to manage an ecosystem, rather than a monolith.

“It really needs to focus on functionality, similar to how you would evaluate any other ERP, with functionality number one.”

More broadly she recommends assessing ERP through two difference lenses, starting with enterprise value (productivity, operational effectiveness, ROI) and then deployment risk factors (capability, technical debt, funding and security). That framing becomes even more critical when your ERP is no longer just a single suite, but a core surrounded by an expanding ring of marketplace components.

Geopolitical turmoil

While 2026 might see ERP back in the spotlight, Ralhan is hedging her bets, noting that geopolitical factors are impacting the market ‘somewhat’. That turmoil impacts product selection, though that hasn’t as yet been seen locally. Trends being seen globally that may filter down to A/NZ also include an increased focus on sovereignty and sovereign cloud ERP. And, of course, in times of turbulence, the wallets tend to tighten – in this case especially for those reliant or heavily linked to other parts of the world.

“But I don’t think it will be a ‘lights on’ year,” she says, referring to the leaner spend years post-Covid, where it was just about keeping the lights on for ERP systems because a lot of investment had been done during the Covid years.

“I think there will be more movement than we have seen in the last couple of years, but the assessment going through an ERP transformation project will now also include geopolitical factors.”

Capturing the mood for the year ahead, Ralhan says ERP is very rarely a quick win and this is not the time to ‘go fast and break things’.

As the technology changes, the ecosystem is changing and external conditions, from security posture to geopolitics, are changing how organisations assess long-term commitments. And while end-of-life pressures might be the spark, marketplaces can offer a credible path accelerating innovation and differentiation, while forcing a more mature conversation about governance, security and resilience.