Johannesburg, 30 Oct 2013
AWCape is creating an ERP powerhouse in the Western Cape by partnering with Sage ERP Africa's leading business partner, Parity Software. Parity Software excelled to the top of the Sage ERP rankings when it concluded an agreement with EUROPCAR during 2012 to supply the car rental giant with Sage ERP X3 for its worldwide operations.
The partnership between AWCape and Parity is all about focus. AWCape is a leading Sage 300 ERP (previously called Accpac) specialist, that chooses to maintain its focus on Accpac ERP, while Parity Software is focusing on Sage ERP X3.
As a result of this partnership, the two companies can offer both of Sage's ERP offerings to its customers knowing that it will be supported by a focused team. This collaboration and specialisation will remove any bias towards the choice of Sage ERP product for their customers and it has been both companies' experience that this focus and simplicity is a key ingredient for successful ERP implementation, and also for delivering high levels of customer service and customer satisfaction.
The CEOs of both AWCape and Parity Software have a business relationship dating back to the mid-80s, when AWCape's Henri Hattingh started his company Applico, which became the largest Accpac ERP business partner in its time, later sold to QData, which became southern Africa's leading software and service group. Ken Fargher, the Chairman of Parity Software, started Parity in the mid-80s with a natural flair for developing custom solutions for the Accpac dealer base, and this is how they met, how the association started. Through this long association, their respective companies also share the same values and culture of treating the customer as king.
Parity Software excelled its growth when it concluded an agreement with Massmart to supply all of its current ERP systems, with a total number of users exceeding 800. From this followed the implementation of Sage ERP X3 at Bearings International, Dawn group's ISCA and Cobra Taps, both installations with user numbers in the 500s. Parity Software became one of the largest Microsoft Dynamics business partners with a large number of CRM installations.
Today, both companies offer Sage CRM solutions, with AWCape benefiting from sharing in Parity's CRM development resources. Parity is also recognised as an authorised developer for the Sage ERP X3 platform and has successfully developed the Cashbook module for X3.
AWCape is positioned towards supporting the upper end of the mid-sized ERP users in the Western Cape, and typical customers include Paarl Media, PEPKOR Africa, Fruit and Veg, Educor, Big Concerts and also a number of organisations in the public sector. Parity, on the other end, is positioned towards supporting mid-size to enterprise-level ERP users.
Both companies have strong competencies to deliver ERP and CRM solutions to the manufacturing industry, with Parity having a number of successful implementations of Sage ERP X3's powerful manufacturing module under the belt. AWCape has particular strengths towards configuring Accpac for simplistic manufacturing environments or, alternatively, to supply and support Sage 300 ERP's manufacturing suite, AutoSimply.
Both companies will benefit from using each other's office facilities in Cape Town and Johannesburg and are viewing this partnership as an opportunity to expand into new regions.
AWCape is operating an authorised Sage training centre in Cape Town, with a focus on Sage 300 ERP (Accpac) and related products, and this will now be expanded to include Sage ERP X3 and Sage CRM.
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