Enterprise software firms are following Steve Jobs’ taste for smart mobility and improved user experience (UX) years after the Apple iPhone was introduced to the world in 2007.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software helps organisations integrate all business operations such as product planning, manufacturing processes, inventory control, and distribution for optimal management.

And this week, Sage announced the African availability of its ERP X3 version 7 software, which includes added features such as responsive web and mobile interfaces.

The ERP X3 version 7 redesign is built on HTML5 technology and is suited to all major web browsers, operating systems, the cloud and on-premise. Other features of the software include multilingual and multi-currency support.

However, improved UX was also a focus point for business software maker SAP at its SAPPHIRE 2014 conference held in Orlando, Florida last month.

At the event, SAP announced that its Fiori UX is planned to be included within underlying licences of SAP software. SAP Fiori was launched last year as a collection of apps with a “consumer-like UX to improve the user experience of core SAP software functions.”

Consumerisation; then, has become a driver behind top enterprise software firms focusing on better UX design, according to Lise Hagen, an International Data Corporation (IDC) research manager for software and IT services in Africa.

“I think the primary driver towards better user experience is very much the consumerisation,” Hagen told ITWeb Africa.

“If you compare the gap between the user experience in the enterprise and the user experience in consumer software, you can already see the gap there,” Hagen said.

Apart from closing the gap between consumer and enterprise software experiences, improved UX could also boost bottom line business performance.

A study by Sage has concluded that mid-market companies with “improved data accessibility, quality, intelligence and usability can expect 35% more incremental revenue year over year than lower-performing companies.”

IDC’s Hagen further explained to ITWeb Africa that improved UX does away with the need to know; for example, commands within business software to perform specific functions.

UX then acts as a layer that helps enable greater accessibility among business staff and a possible boost in productivity.

“I think from a corporate point of view, this is obviously a good thing because you get to maximise the productivity of your workers,” Hagen told ITWeb Africa.

Keith Fenner, senior vice president sales for Sage ERP X3 AAMEA (Africa, Australia, Middle East and Asia), illustrated to journalists and analysts on Tuesday in Johannesburg how his company’s latest ERP product helps users navigate the software better.

“This product (Sage ERP X3 version 7) can give a user role based access with a visual diagram of what to do in a day’s work as opposed to menu options upon menu options and submenu, and finally you get lost,” Brenner said in a presentation.

Improved UX in enterprise software is not just becoming a key market differentiator for ERP makers but also an attribute that customers in Africa are “going to expect”, according to Hagen.

Fenner at the briefing also explained how improved UX can help businesses in a struggling South African economy expand into faster growing African economies. Analysts have forecast that South Africa’s economy will struggle to grow more than 2% this year as strikes cripple the likes of the country’s platinum sector.

“What we see in Africa is exactly that: I’m in South Africa, it’s getting tight; where can I open up: Congo, Mozambique? Or do I move up to West Africa? If so, do I need French language, Portuguese language, I need the legislation -- I don’t want to understand it, I just want to switch it on and it works,” said Fenner.

Despite a dip in the South African economy, prospects are potentially healthy for the country’s enterprise applications space.

Research from the IDC in November 2013 forecast that overall enterprise applications software (EAS) spending in South Africa could increase 10.5% year-on-year in 2014 to total $518.45 million.

The IDC’s South Africa Enterprise Applications Software Market 2013–2017 Forecast noted; however, that this represents “a decline on the 10.9% figure predicted for 2013, with IDC attributing the marginal downturn to an anticipated delay in government spending plans as a result of the general elections scheduled for 2014.”

“With a further 12 months likely to pass before the new government is fully focused on its investment plans, improved growth is not anticipated for the country's EAS market until 2016, with IDC predicting year-on-year growth of 11.8% for that year,” a press release from the IDC noted in November last year.

Globally, the worldwide enterprise software market grew 3.8% in 2013, according to research firm Gartner.

Gartner also notes that SAP was the ERP market leader in 2013 with sales of $6.1 billion, Oracle was second with $3.117 billion and Sage third with $1.5 billion.