JD Edwards is in the process of dissolving almost 70% of its business partnerships outside its North American region, citing unprofitability as one of the major drivers.
At the same time, the software solutions developer is increasing its international direct consulting footprint and is hiring about 150 new employees every six weeks.
Richard Mathews, senior VP: International at the company, said during a press briefing at JD Edwards` annual user group conference in Denver this week that "historically speaking, business partners in other countries did what they liked".
During the past year the company has responded to this by axing 41% of its international implementation service providers, 28% of its resellers and 36% of its applications service providers. Having started with about 260 partners in the international arena at the beginning of the third quarter of the company`s 2001 financial year, Mathews is aiming to cut this down to about 80 partnerships.
The weeding out of unprofitable business partners is part of an international restructuring strategy to take full advantage of growing markets outside the North American region. JD Edwards` global licence revenues in the first quarter of its 2002 financial year saw a shift of 7% from the US to the EMEA and ROW (rest of world) regions.
SA ranks fourth in terms of revenue in JD Edwards` EMEA region, which comprises between 40 to 50 countries. "SA is a huge growth area, but most companies there are still looking at the ERP [enterprise resource planning] environment and haven`t yet moved on to customer relationship management or supply chain management initiatives," said Mathews.
SA-based Nampak, one of Africa`s largest and most diversified packaging manufacturers, recently signed a multimillion-rand deal with JD Edwards, which Mathews described as "one of our biggest deals ever".
Other big wins are still ongoing in Germany, where Mathews said JD Edwards is winning business at the rate of between two to three new customers a week in deals worth from around $50 000 up to about $3 million. "It looks like some companies in Germany have started saying they need an alternative to SAP. Business here for us is really strong at the moment," noted Mathews.
He added that other growth markets JD Edwards is actively campaigning for business in include China, Japan, Korea and India.
Related stories:
New, smaller chew from JD Edwards
Share
