Johannesburg, 23 Nov 2007
Antimony, one of the few national enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution providers in South Africa to have its headquarters in Durban, has become a SAP Business One partner, with a view to dominating the small business market in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
Antimony sales and marketing director Lee-Ann Mounter says having its headquarters in KZN gives the company a distinct advantage in the region.
"Companies like the idea of having an ERP provider where it doesn't cost them an arm and a leg to see consultants face-to-face - as it does when consultants have to travel here from, say, Gauteng.
"Also, we have a good reputation in the region, having been a provider of effective ERP solutions to corporates for some time now.
"And, with SAP Business One, we now have a product that solves problems that a large segment of the local business community simply has not been able to get addressed before.
"For example, the manufacturing and construction industries in KZN are booming at the moment - resulting in hundreds of small businesses struggling to meet demand. So they're looking for ways to manage by exception, to avoid being swamped by detail. They need to be able to pick up the threats and opportunities confronting their businesses earlier and take effective action before control spirals away from them.
"SAP Business One is ideal in situations like these. Apart from being affordable and easy to use, it has a very proactive methodology for presenting data in terms both of identifying high-level performance indicators and enabling drill-down to supporting information.
"It's therefore a superb tool for positioning managers to make more money for the business while they impose more control over it.
"It's also a useful bridge for small companies that are growing quickly and have outgrown their legacy systems, but are not yet ready for enterprise strength ERP. Because it is best practice-based, it can actually guide SME executives into the next level of business operation.
"In other words, SAP Business One adds a crucial extra dimension to the competitive advantage we already have in KZN."
SAP Africa Business One solution manager, Paul Vermaak, says having Antimony join the SAP Business One channel adds impetus to the solution's remarkable growth. "We've seen a 40% increase in sales in the first six months of this year, well ahead of the market average. And a customer survey we did shows that of that 40% increase, 39% of the sales are to existing customers wanting additional licences. In other words, our customers are very successfully using SAP Business One as a tool for enabling their growth.
"Antimony will capitalise on that in the KZN region - and, in the process, not only expand its own market, but SAP's as well.
Antimony joins the ranks of 15 other SAP Business One implementation partners. Vermaak says that, to maintain world class service and quality levels to SAP Business One customers while the solution takes progressively more market share, SAP Africa will recruit another seven business partners during the next 12 months. "Most of our existing partners are at full capacity - and we're signing up to 40 new customers a month. So we need to bring on additional skills and experience as quickly as possible."
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