Lawson Software – S3 or M3?

Posted by spencer on May 21, 2010 under ERP Software, Government Software, Non-Profit Software | 2 Comments to Read

Lawson software was originally founded in the 1970′s and remained a private company until December 2001, when they went public. Originally built on the AS400 platform, the software has migrated through the client/server era and now is 100% web enabled which means that you can use a web browser to access the software, as well as thin client options as well. Unlike JD Edwards which similarly came from the AS400 and subsequently got acquired by PeopleSoft and then Oracle, Lawson has remained a stand-alone company. They made a large acquisition in 2005 by acquiring Intentia – a european based manufacturing solution. Last year Lawson was profitable and had $757M in revenues.

The important thing to remember as you evaluate Lawson software is that they have two separate ERP software products – Lawson S3 and M3.

Lawson S3 is the traditional Lawson product. This software is a very strong financial solution that has a very broad implementation base in many different industries. S3 has a particular focus on Financials, Health Care, Non-Profits, Government, and service based organizations. It also has a very strong Human Capital Management (HCM – otherwise known as Human Resources). In fact, many organizations use Lawson’s HR solution as a stand alone HR product even if they do not use Lawson’s S3 ERP product. S3 also touts a very strong reporting tool called Lawson Business Intelligence (LBI).

Lawson M3 came to Lawson through the Intentia acquisition. This ERP is focused on Manufacturing and Distribution companies and is a stronger multi-national solution than S3. (In fact the majority of Lawson international installations and offices are focused on the M3 product). Keep in mind that this product is completely separate from S3. For example, the strong S3 HR solution would require an integration to the M3 product.

With regard to implementation, Lawson has their internal Professional Services Organization, but also has a network of 200+ software integrators in their Lawson Partner Network. Some of these partners focus on S3, while others focus on M3. Make sure that you do an implementation partner selection when considering Lawson to find an implementation partner with experience in your industry and the specific product you are implementing. Many times these partners have more experience in a particular industry at lower billing rates than Lawson’s direct implementation.

We consider both S3 and M3 to be Tier 2 ERP solutions in our 5 Tier Chart(www.softresources.com/software-market-overview). This means that Lawson can compete very favorably with the Oracle suite of products as well as SAP at a lower cost. Over the past 15 years we have been doing software selection consulting, both Lawson S3 and M3 have been selected by various clients. These products are definitely worth consideration as you evaluate your ERP software options.