Reporting solutions company, Alchemex, celebrates its fifth birthday in October 2006. From small beginnings, the company has recently launched a number of exciting initiatives and is set to experience massive growth as both install base offerings and satisfied customers increase.
Background and people
Five years ago, Alchemex was founded by Gary Boddington, Charles Teversham and Darryl Smith with the vision of delivering a simple reporting tool to company decision-makers who experienced frustrations with reporting.
Having had significant experience in business analysis and solution development in high-end ERP applications like SAP, the founding members were well-placed to relate to the kinds of frustrations experienced by most companies.
One common theme was very evident... people needed information to make the best decisions for their business, and they all wanted it in Excel. There was a clear need for a tool that could interrogate multiple data sources, and deliver formatted information in Excel, at the click of a button.
Spreadsheets were here to stay, but their use needed to be tightened up to deliver a single version of the truth that could be trusted and distributed confidently across an organisation. The company's product, the Alchemex Reporting Solution, evolved to fulfil this need, providing a totally flexible reporting solution that leverages the power of Microsoft Excel to give decision-makers instant access to the right information, formatted the way they choose.
Where are we now?
Alchemex has 30 head office staff and over 3 000 different companies, both local and abroad, benefiting from the use of Alchemex software. This is supported by a national infrastructure in Gauteng, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban.
Although Alchemex is a totally flexible reporting tool, the success to date is attributed to focusing on solutions for the more prevalent install bases like Pastel (packaged as the Business Intelligence Centre available on Partner, Evolution and Payroll), SYSPRO (MS SQL and C-ISAM), Accpac (MS SQL and Pervasive), Great Plains (MS SQL), VIP Payroll (packaged as the Business Intelligence Manager on Essentials, Classic and Premier), SAP Business One, Sybiz Vision (Australia) and others. Unlike other proprietary reporting solutions and Excel links, Alchemex delivers a suite of automated container solutions or pre-formatted Excel report templates for the specific install bases to get users up and running immediately and to fast-track customised reporting.
Install base solutions cover financials (including management pack automation), sales analyses, inventory and purchasing.
A special birthday offer has been made available for a limited period, whereby software and container solutions can be acquired at 50% discount. For more information, call 0861 102 302.
This initiative would be incomplete if it weren't supported by the Training and Consulting divisions, developed to close the loop on delivering a whole service to customers.
Supporting the claim that Excel is to be the chosen BI platform of the future, Alchemex has invested significantly in developing the Excel on Steroids training program, specifically aimed at teaching people how to maximise the use of Excel as a reporting platform - extending its use well beyond just spreadsheet functionality. Alchemex has seen over 3 000 delegates graduate from the program in the last year. In addition, a number of Alchemex's training courses have been launched online so potential delegates need not take time out of their busy working weeks to commute to a training centre, but can now excel themselves anytime, anywhere and become expert report writers in the comfort of their home or office. The following workshops are available online:
* Alchemex Report Manager: Essential skills in running the Report Manager application
* Alchemex Consultant: Training for creating and maintaining reports within the Alchemex/BIC environment
* Excel On Steroids: Specialised Excel training in three workshops focusing acutely on developing advanced report writing skills
A special birthday offer has been made available for a limited period, whereby all five courses can be booked at 50% discount. For more information, call (086) 1102 302.
The people at Alchemex have an extraordinary culture and the adoption of a new corporate identity conveys what they call the 'EX-factor'... that unique quality that exists in certain companies, setting them apart from their competitors. At Alchemex, "EXcellence is EXpected from everyone and in everything we do". The company aims to set an EXample across the software, training and consulting divisions of the business and wants to offer EXemplary service in constant pursuit of EXciting product and solution design and EXceptional value offerings. Alchemex values are driven by open and honest communication with everyone, and a respect and support for each other.
The way forward?
Business intelligence is being talked about everywhere, with all major vendors attempting to stake their claim in some form or another. Traditionally such technology has only been available to corporate giants with huge budgets, but this will be changing rapidly. The next five years will see rapid adoption of business intelligence for SMEs in particular - the masses so to speak. Solutions must be rapidly deployed in a cost-effective manner so that companies realise their returns early. Alchemex is well placed to deliver on this initiative as its product suite, training and service offerings grow. This is supported by a 32% year-on-year revenue growth for 2005, and on track forecasts of 79% for the same period this year.
In addition, Alchemex's experience in Excel as a front-end stands the company in good stead to take advantage of the enhanced functionality available in the new version of Excel 2007. Microsoft is serious about business intelligence and has invested significant resource in developing areas of Excel that take it beyond just a spreadsheet application, supporting its vision of Excel 2007 as a central hub for intelligence. Excel as a tool is already so pervasively deployed, but now businesses need to get clever about how they leverage this existing investment in conjunction with BI tools that close the loop on "loose" Excel spreadsheet use, ultimately delivering one single version of the truth. The essence of good BI is delivering the right information, at the right time, in the right format, and Alchemex does just that.
Alchemex's install base offerings are set to grow, locally and abroad, in terms of both add-ons to applications, where the report writing tool is powered by Alchemex, as well as successful partnerships with application vendors, where Alchemex is integrated as the reporting solution within the application. The latter has been successful and will continue to be so because other vendors can focus on their core business, but still offer the flexibility to extract, analyse and report on information, using the Alchemex software.
Alchemex is also well placed to focus on growth through partnerships with service agents in a position to add value to solution delivery to end-users. This will also be a strong focus in next 12 months.
This is what some of our customers have to say...
"Our expectations have been exceeded in the way Alchemex delivers critical business information from our ACCPAC system. We have converted weeks of repetitive work every month into a few hours. Now that's what I call a measurable return on investment." says Ravind Sukdeo, Financial Director, Bidfreight Port Operations (Pty) Ltd (Member of the BIDvest Group Limited).
"We use Alchemex products extensively in our business. I believe that being able to obtain a 'snapshot view' of your business is critical in today's business environment when there is so often just too much information floating about. Managers need to dedicate their skills to managing - not sifting through endless reports trying to make sense of heaps of information. Alchemex does this neatly and efficiently - with no fuss at all and delivers this information 'on demand' and through Excel. What more could you ask for?", says Steven Cohen, Managing Director, Pastel Software.
Alchemex is "Intelligent Reporting". Visit www.alchemex.net for more information.
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