ERP Systems vs. Best of Breed: Choosing the Right Software for your Needs

As airlines, MROs, and other aerospace organizations digitize their operations, they are faced with a key strategic question: Which software approach is better, ERP or “best of breed”?

To set the context for this debate, ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is a software-based management system that combines all elements of a business — from Accounting and Production to Sales and Janitorial Services — into a single integrated database. ‘Best of breed’ refers to narrowly-focused software systems that only deal with one aspect of the business — like Procurement — and nothing else.

The simplest way to understand the difference between the two is best summed up by Rob Mather, IFS’s Vice President of Aerospace and Defense. (IFS’ software solutions provide an integrated platform that allows airlines and MROs to manage their maintenance operations more effectively.) “ERP systems tend to try to be everything to everybody,” he said. “Meanwhile, best-of-breed systems try to do one thing really, really well.”

A more detailed explanation is provided by Chris Clements. He is Senior Sales Representative with Swiss Aviation Software (Swiss-AS). They produce and support AMOS, a comprehensive and fully integrated ERP solution that manages all aspects of aircraft maintenance, engineering, and logistics.
“A single integrated ERP solution is process-based and built on a central database that provides a single source of truth and seamless access to live data,” Clements said. “Updates are instantly reflected across the system, eliminating the need for duplicate manual entries or extensive API connections. In aviation, where managing high-value assets in a safety-critical environment is paramount, such an integrated ERP delivers a stable foundation for operational, compliance, and commercial needs.”

In contrast, “the best-of-breed approach uses multiple solutions, each tailored to a specific business function by different providers,” he said. “The number and scope of solutions vary — from a CAMO-only setup to a full airline operation with in-house and third-party MRO services. This approach offers specialised functionality but requires robust integration to ensure consistent and reliable data flow.”

ERP Pros and Cons
In researching this article, Aerospace Innovations magazine observed general agreement among all parties about the pros and cons of ERP and best-of-breed systems, regardless of the kinds of platforms their own companies offer.

Let’s begin with the pros of ERP solutions for aerospace companies. The first benefit they offer is centralized data storage and simplified data management. This is because all of the data resides in a single system, thus providing a “single source of truth.” As a result, using an ERP simplifies reporting, eliminates the need for duplicate data entry, and minimizes any technical complexities associated with third-party integrations. The company only has to manage a relationship with one vendor and one contract, thus reducing administrative and IT expenses.

John Stone is Vice President of Product Management with Ultramain Systems. Their ULTRAMAIN ERP manages all aspects of an aerospace company’s business, save for Finance and Human Resources. (For this reason, Ultramain Systems defines ULTRAMAIN as an Enterprise Asset Management [EAM] system, rather than an ERP.) “A single ERP platform offers a unified data model, consistent user experience, and simplified vendor management,” he said. “It can streamline enterprise-wide reporting and reduce the number of systems IT must maintain. For finance, HR, procurement, and inventory, this ‘one stop shop’ can be efficient and predictable.

ERP systems also provide streamlined workflows for their users. This is because the system’s all-encompassing platform applies consistent processes across different departments.

Monica Badra is the Founder of Aero NextGen. Its online ERP Finder tool helps aerospace companies find the ERP best suited to their needs.

“End-to-end automation through ERPs reduces manual handoffs, paperwork, and duplicate data entry,” said Badra. “This means fewer errors and less wasted time. Agentic layers and AI agents are becoming increasingly more popular [in ERPs] and are starting to automate manual workflows in Finance, Procurement, Customer Service, and other indirect functions.”

If an ERP system is widespread and well-funded, it will likely offer enhanced security and the ability to scale up easily to keep up with corporate growth. As well, “Leading ERPs are built with large enterprises’ strict regulatory needs in mind, thus making audits and reporting less stressful,” Badra said.
As for the cons of ERP systems? Cost is at the top of the list, because an enterprise-wide software platform must be priced high enough to support its development support costs while turning a profit for its creator. ERP systems can also be quite complex to implement and maintain, because they must be installed across entire enterprises.

Then there’s the generic nature of ERPs. To support their development and support costs, ERP vendors have to sell into as many industries as possible. “ERP modules are generally not aviation-specific,” Stone said. “As a result, meeting regulatory and operational needs often requires significant customization, adding cost, complexity, and long timelines. These customizations can create unique, hard-to-maintain systems that lag in adopting new technology or staying aligned with evolving regulatory requirements.”

Finally, the sheer size and complexity of ERPs can make them difficult to update and modify. Meanwhile, when large-scale upgrades are implemented, they can disrupt the entire organization and devour a great deal of IT support hours.

Best-of-Breed Pros and Cons
Because they don’t try to be everything to everyone, best-of-breed systems do not suffer the cons associated with ERP systems. By being intensely focused on a single purpose, or a closely aligned set of associated purposes, best-of-breed systems can do what they do very, very well.

Saravanan Rajarajan is AVP and Head of Consulting for Aviation, Aerospace & Defense at Ramco Systems. His company’s Ramco Aviation Software is an integrated web-based ERP platform for airlines, MRO, defense, and helicopter operator organizations.

“Best-of-breed systems bring in deep domain expertise aligned with industry practices, enabling the solution to be deployed with little to no customization,” said Rajarajan. “As R&D for best-of-breed systems is focused on specific domains, these products get enhanced continuously with respect to regulatory and statutory requirements, facilitating faster adoption of technology enablers for industry-specific problems.”

Being so narrowly focused, best-of-breed systems often address specific industry needs right “out of the box”. As a result, they often need less time and tweaking to deploy than generic ERP systems.

These facts explain why best-of-breed systems are easier to update and upgrade than ERP systems. “You have the flexibility to swap out underperforming tools as your needs evolve, without overhauling your entire tech stack,” Badra said.

“Best-of-breed solutions can deliver new features independently, allowing faster adoption in specific areas,” agreed Clements. “However, each change must be integrated with connected systems to maintain data flow and process alignment.”

Conversely, the pros enjoyed by ERP systems translate into cons for best-of-breed systems. A case in point: Because they are narrowly focused, best-of-breed systems cannot do everything for an aerospace company. As a result, this company would have to install a suite of best-of-breed systems to match the enterprise-wide coverage offered by an ERP. Doing so requires these systems to be integrated together — a task that requires a talented IT department and risks issues such as data silos, synchronization and data entry issues, and a lack of consistent data flow.

“There are certain benefits that can only be unlocked with tightly integrated processes across different areas of the business,” cautioned Mather. “If your best-of-breed isn’t crossing those boundaries, you can’t unlock those types of benefits, no matter how much effort is spent on integrating the disparate systems. Best-of-breed systems also face challenges due to smaller customer pools resulting in less total product investment meaning that it is harder to innovate at pace and adapt to new technologies.”

Add in the time and effort required to manage multiple vendors, contracts, and support teams, plus the fact that employees may have to work with multiple logins and different user interfaces, and best-of-breed systems have their downsides.

Some ERP/Best-of-Breed Offerings
So far we have discussed the pros and cons of ERPs and best-of-breed systems in general. Now it is time to see what the vendors interviewed for this story have to offer.

Let’s begin with ERP systems. Ramco’s Ramco Aviation Software has been designed to provide aerospace companies with a comprehensive aviation-specific ERP system. This software has an generic ERP’s ability to support various business functions including Finance and Sales, while at the same time providing an aerospace-centric focus across the entire platform.

“This approach has helped us support the end-to-end business process and also enabled the domain specific deep functional requirements unique to the aviation industry,” Rajarajan said. “For example, managing the rotable items from both maintenance and finance perspectives, such as exchanges with customers and suppliers, depreciation, valuation and scrapping, is seamlessly handled within a single system. Third-party integrations are considerably reduced as Ramco’s integrated solution covers most business areas — barring HR and flight operations — thereby bringing down the IT cost of ownership.”
As John Stone has mentioned, Ultramain Systems describes its ULTRAMAIN system as being an aviation-focused EAM rather than a generic ERP. Still, for the sake of general classification, it fits best in the ERP category.

“As an EAM, ULTRAMAIN can support the maintenance needs of an entire enterprise, even when operations extend beyond aviation, while still delivering the specialized capabilities required for complex fleet maintenance,” said Stone. “We chose this approach because airlines and MROs need the best of both worlds. Generic ERPs and EAMs may offer broad integration, but they typically require heavy customization to meet aviation’s regulatory and operational demands. Conversely, traditional best-of-breed point solutions deliver depth but often operate in isolation, making integration and enterprise visibility more challenging.”

By designing ULTRAMAIN as an aviation-focused EAM, Ultramain Systems aims to provide operators with a single, fully-integrated platform that covers engineering, materials, planning, execution, and reliability “right out of the box, while maintaining the enterprise integration strengths of an EAM system,” Stone said. “This allows ULTRAMAIN to handle aviation maintenance with unmatched depth, while also supporting other business units and asset types within the same organization. The result is faster deployment, reduced integration risk, and a platform that remains current with technology and regulatory changes without costly rebuilds.”

Although Swiss-AS sees AMOS as a best-of-breed solution, Clements said that this system’s ability to work with other third-party systems makes it a best-of-breed/ERP hybrid. “Swiss-AS determined very early on that a hybrid approach was the optimal solution to deliver a single integrated solution that is in and of itself best-of-breed whilst integrating with other leading suppliers,” he explained. “As part of the best-of-breed logic the most common integration that all AMOS customers use is the financial suite of APIs. AMOS generates a huge amount of financial data, and this is exported to the customers’ financial ERP solution as well as receiving validations and updates. For the airline customers it is the flight operations solutions that is critical, and AMOS has dedicated APIs for the best solutions on the market as well as generic solutions for other providers.”

As for business areas not covered by AMOS, such as Human Resources? “AMOS can be the parent for data such as staff management, qualifications, shift plans and leave,” replied Clements. “Or it can play the child receiving some or all of this data from best-of-breed external solutions ensuring that the customer retains flexibility to determine the best means of delivering value to each role and the business overall.”

For the record, the AMOS platform does cover the core scope for most airlines and MROs. This includes Engineering, Material Management, Planning, Production, Maintenance Control, Component Maintenance, Quality Control, Commercial (e.g. providing services to third parties), Human Resources, and Financial Management. Around 65% of Swiss-AS’ customers use AMOS across this full scope.

In recent years, Swiss-AS has become part of the Digital Tech Ops Ecosystem, thereby providing additional decision solutions seamlessly integrated with AMOS. “A key example of this is Aviatar’s Predictive Health Analytics,” Clements said. “The Aviatar platform is able to deliver support to the customer based not only on their own data but also based on data from other airlines also using the solution, not all of whom use AMOS. Meanwhile, when AMOS customers identified planning optimization as an area of interest, Swiss-AS and Aviatar produced LMPO (Line Maintenance Planning Optimisation). It adds another level of automation and support for fleet planners when planning maintenance slots.”

IFS is another vendor that sees its management platform as a hybrid. “IFS has found a way to capture the best of both worlds,” said Mather. “We have focused on just six industries. This makes our product, IFS Cloud, a specialized ERP — but what we’ve done is take best-of-breed level capabilities and embed them in our expansive configurable platform. In the case of aviation maintenance, we’ve taken the industry-leading best-of-breed product, IFS Maintenix, used by airlines like Southwest, Air France KLM, LATAM, and Qantas, and embedded it in the IFS Cloud platform. We then integrated it to a separate industry-leading solution for engine maintenance and a much more robust supply chain capability. This allowed us to create the IFS Cloud for Aviation Maintenance solution.”

This said, IFS prides itself on being a customer-driven company that supports customer choice. “Recognizing that every customer is different, we’ve enabled the Composable Enterprise, which Gartner describes as an organization that can innovate and adapt quickly by harnessing modular, consumable business capabilities,” Mather said. “In this approach, we’ve made our tightly integrated systems modular. What this means is you can buy our full footprint of ERP and MRO solutions or use our best-of-breed MRO capability exclusively and integrate it into your existing IT landscape.”

Managing all of these choices is why Aero NextGen has found a ready market for its services. “We sit at the crossroads of this ERP vs. best-of-breed debate,” said Badra. “This is why we designed the ERP Finder. We didn’t pick a side — we built a platform that empowers organizations to make the right choice for their unique operational realities. The aviation sector is notorious for its complexity, legacy processes, and ‘square peg, round hole’ software deployments. The ERP Finder cuts through this by benchmarking 50+ aviation-specific solutions (ERPs and best-of-breed tools), mapping them to real-world workflows, and delivering tailored, unbiased recommendations. We’re independent, deeply specialized, and laser-focused on fit-for-purpose — not vendor hype.”

On a related theme, Block Aero is making it easier for both system approaches to function efficiently. To do this, “we are creating digital passports for every aero asset in the world,” said Block Aero Founder and CEO Todd Siena. “Every aircraft, every engine, every high-value aerospace component has a story — a history of manufacture, maintenance, ownership, and operation that determines its safety, reliability, and market value. Today, those stories are fragmented across countless systems, spreadsheets, and paper records, making them difficult to trust and costly to verify. Block Aero solves this by creating an immutable digital passport for every aero asset — a Blockchain Aviation Asset (BAA) — secured on our enterprise-grade Aviation Blockchain Network (ABN). These passports consolidate asset identity and provenance into a trusted, portable record that survives ownership changes, company closures, and system migrations.”

Making the Choice
We have examined the pros and cons of ERP and best-of-breed systems and detailed the offerings of the companies interviewed for this article. This brings us to the final question: Which approach is best for your aerospace company?

The answer: “Choosing between these models depends on the organization’s business and IT strategies,” said Rajarajan. “If the organization places a greater priority on out-of-the-box functional fit over customization or configuration, then the best-of-breed options would be the best choice. But if the organization has already invested in an ERP and would like to leverage their investment to meet its own business needs or to deploy it to its subsidiaries, expanding the ERP can facilitate process harmonization and enhance reporting.”

We close with some words of wisdom from Monica Badra, a person whose business helps people choose the right software systems for their needs. “Don’t let technology dictate your strategy,” she said. “Let your strategy dictate your technology. The ‘right’ system is the one that solves your pain points, fits your workflows, and supports your growth ambitions. In aviation, there’s no room for generic answers or costly missteps.”  

By James Careless