Johannesburg, 10 Jul 2014
According to the IDC's prediction for Africa in 2014: "Africa seeks relevant technology that brings direct answers to the continent's social, economic, and commercial issues," said Mark Walker, director of Insights and vertical industries at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. "Solving challenges through innovative approaches and leapfrogging technologies and business models will be key themes across Africa in 2014."1
With an outlook such as this, software resellers looking for new opportunities in the business software space need look no further. As Epicor begins to roll-out the latest version of its respected business software in Africa, it is clear that this latest offering, combined with its comprehensive channel programme, speaks directly to proven VARs looking to deliver a business solution that really addresses the needs of the African market.
IDC further predicts: "Strong GDP growth plus high ICT spend and investment means Africa will remain an attractive technology region in 2014, but users are becoming more sophisticated and demanding, so suppliers must become more focused in the year ahead if they are to remain relevant. Although some African countries are experiencing double-digit economic growth, the majority of local markets are small when compared with the mature markets of Europe and the US. Due to currency volatilities, labor issues, and reactions to global trends, short-term market outlooks are often turbulent. Over the short term, regional offices of multinational companies will increasingly face the challenging task of managing headquarter expectations solely based on the relevant experience gained in developed markets. Moreover, clients express a preference for providers with a solid track record and continued local presence. Service providers will have to display solid long-term strategies and commitment to African markets in order to gain confidence and increased market share in 2014 and beyond."1
This is why Epicor has a commitment to developing a strategic channel ecosystem across Africa. By building strong collaborative partnerships with a select number of partners, Epicor sees an opportunity to offer business value and a technological opportunity to more businesses in more locations. For those organisations that have a proven model for selling and implementing business solutions, Epicor offers a comprehensive partner programme with tools and resources to enable and support them growing their business.
Enablement is high priority and partners have a variety of marketing and PR resources that they can tap into; however, applying local knowledge to any marketing campaign is vital so the combined expertise and knowledge of partner and vendor has proved to be a proactive and successful approach to building business opportunities for VARs in Africa.
But it really is the new release of Epicor ERP that is providing Epicor and its partners with the opportunity to really drive growth throughout Africa. An innovative product based on familiar Microsoft technology that drives flexibility and collaboration into the core business processes by applying some of the latest social innovations and mobile applications. Utilising the latest technology platform, Epicor ERP is designed to drive out complexity and focus on simplicity and ease of use - making user adoption greater, improving responsiveness to customers and increasing business visibility - driving up its value for any organisation.
"Epicor invests significantly in research and development; they offer cutting-edge technology always a step ahead of their competition," says Stuart Scanlon, sales director for Epicor channel partner New Era Solutions. "We have built our business around Epicor and have enjoyed over 15 years of success, which continues to gain momentum."
In a recent survey conducted among IT professionals in South Africa by ITWeb and Epicor partner, New Era Solutions, when asked what they would consider to be the main challenges caused by their current ERP system, the following key factors came up tops:
* Too much reliance on vendor to make changes; and
* System does not provide real-time transactional and financial data.
This continues to highlight the necessity for ERP vendors to provide organisations with solutions that streamline processes, and deliver functionality and tools to address these challenges. Specifically, being able to access and interpret data to enable strategic decision-making and provide collaborative tools to enable real-time operational information. The ability to easily personalise and extend a system beyond its core enables agility when it comes to market changes and customer demands. Coupled with a flexible and familiar technology platform such as Microsoft, instead of a rigid proprietary architecture, companies can use internal skills to manage and align the ERP system to the business needs. This can greatly affect the overall total cost of ownership and hence make ERP systems such as Epicor ERP 10 a more viable option.
Here is why:
* Epicor ERP version 10 is fully optimised for SQL Server 2014, the newest version of SQL Server introduced earlier this month. SQL Server 2014 is part of the powerful new Epicor ERP technology foundation designed to help drive twice the performance and four times the scalability of previous Epicor ERP releases, along with improved ease of use, reduced IT cost and complexity.
* It represents a significant cost advantages due to the fact that Epicor ERP can now run exclusively on an end-to-end Microsoft technology stack. This enables organisations to source IT support from a widely available pool of professionals skilled in Windows, SQL Server and .NET technologies, as opposed to proprietary technologies.
* Performance is double that of previous releases, and ERP 10 achieves significant scalability - four times that of previous releases - lowering infrastructure costs dramatically.
* SQL Server simplifies backup operations by looking at retention periods and transaction workloads to ascertain when the best time would be to perform the backups, and then does so - without manual intervention. This means less manual effort, less cost with improved reliability in backup operations.
* Epicor ERP version 10 also introduces new enhancements to its powerful ICE business architecture, furthering Epicor ERP interoperability and empowering users to define ERP for themselves and share it with others. With more than 1 300 business services connected by the Epicor ICE framework, each service functions as a re-usable component covering every major business aspect managed by ERP (eg, bills of material, invoicing, material, orders).
* Each service is customisable and uses rules engines - rather than fixed code - to control fundamental needs such as rounding, currency, legal numbering, and book structure. ERP services are managed by the Epicor ICE framework to co-ordinate their interactions in accordance with business processes defined by ERP users. This enables organisations to map Epicor ERP to specific business rules and processes, without changing source code. As well, businesses can share and request information with customers, suppliers and partners with ease and speed as never before, and make functionality accessible to a wide range of devices.
* New features also include support for multiple data sources, and the means to publish dashboards to mobile devices and Microsoft SharePoint sites for improved collaboration. An all new graphical business process management workflow designer enables businesses to model and deploy business processes easier and faster than ever before.
Epicor is positioned as a Visionary in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Single-Instance ERP for Product-Centric Midmarket Companies2. Epicor ERP 10 is a new breed of solution that sees the introduction of a number of exciting new applications and technologies that can reinvent the way African companies operate. Based on the five principles of collaboration, choice, responsiveness, simplicity and mobility, it is designed to help organisations work better, both internally and externally, leveraging the knowledge and experience of the people and systems connected together throughout the supply chain.
To find out more about the Epicor Inspired Partner Network and for more information on the Epicor solutions, visit www.epicor.com/mena/partners.
1 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAE24519913
2 Gartner Inc. "Magic Quadrant for Single-Instance ERP for Product-Centric Midmarket Companies" by Christian Hestermann, Chris Pang and Nigel Montgomery, June 27, 2012
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