Local Epicor reseller, distributor and services house New Era Solutions has announced that Epicor has made a number of significant functional enhancements to its Epicor for Service Enterprises application (E4SE).
Focused at the mid-market, E4SE is an end-to-end, Web service-based enterprise service automation (ESA) product which offers a single source for managing and automating the project-centric organisation. Enhancements to this release, named E4SE 8.1, include enhanced project portfolio management (PPM), contingent workforce management, as well as advanced collaboration and customisation capabilities.
Says Scott McKenzie, Managing Director of New Era Solutions: "All of the new features and functionality added to the product have been done on the back of customer demand. The Epicor model is such that the company interacts closely with its customers and is aware of their exact needs. It is in addition to this that the enhancements are geared towards providing for greater planning, execution and enhanced performance in your business."
Other new features of the E4SE 8.1 product include graphical capacity planning and portfolio decision support, designed to empower organisations to better manage resources with greater precision from a single, consolidated and global view of the enterprise.
Citing a recently released Gartner report, McKenzie adds: "It is a global as well as local understanding that organisations to a large extent still lack the appropriate tools to manage and optimise their resources. While the global and local economy is starting to recover, Gartner aptly states that companies are still operating with tighter budgets and need to make better use of existing resources. E4SE 8.1 has been developed around this understanding."
Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
Designed to meet the requirements of project portfolio management, PPM provides the user the ability to view the health and portfolio of a project. It assists by monitoring performance, aiding companies to better plan and align project goals - key initiatives are now easily identified and resources allocated accordingly.
Global Project Accounting
With the world being closely scrutinised under the auspices of tighter corporate governance, this module is designed to assist companies with enhanced contract management and project accounting rules, as well as new currency and customer bill-to features for better invoicing and reconciliation capabilities. All of these features can now be handled at a task level - a critical component for multinational companies.
Contingent Workforce Management
With the resurgence of the contract worker, as well as a renewed interest in outsourcing - companies have to efficiently manage contract or contingent staff. This module enables companies to better manage the process of staffing for and of projects, giving a better view of exactly how many contract staff would be required to complete a task. It integrates the well-known Epicor Sourcing which is already a highly configurable, Web-based solution for strategic sourcing, dynamic pricing, collaboration and negotiation, and complex auctioning.
Improving user productivity and business process flexibility
The addition of a new version of the Epicor Internet Component Environment (ICE) now allows users the option for heightened customisation and flexibility of and with the product. The ICE application toolset enables a customer to tailor all applications and match this with their business requirement. Built on the Microsoft .NET Framework with Visual Studio .NET, ICE caters for large majority of corporations` existing infrastructure.
Epicor ICE 1.2 offers the mid-tier market a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that leverages granular XML Web services and enables greater extensibility. ICE 1.2 also introduces FireSentry, supporting outside-the-firewall connectivity for the distributed service enterprise, ensuring that globally dispersed personnel can access critical functions, such as time and expense entry, at anytime and from anywhere via the Web.
"E4SE 8.1 gives the customer back the control of his project-intensive environment he so desperately needs. The new enhancements marry the desire to increase and pair up staff resources and service profitability. This is no longer just an application, it is a critical business toolset enabling a company to identify new opportunities, better manage staff, manage customer engagements, administer operations and most importantly analyse and pull reports on all of these activities.
"All of these features are becoming more and more critical to the internal needs or organisations as they compete in a shifting business landscape which becomes more competitive each day," ends McKenzie.
Epicor for Service Enterprises 8.1 is expected to be available in late October and Epicor ICE 1.2 is available immediately.
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