SoftworX set for success

SoftworX, local enterprise business solutions company and ex-Baan South Africa subsidiary, has announced that it will be launching a new range of services in early February that will broaden its current offering beyond traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP).

"We will be releasing a host of new products, services, solutions and most importantly, a dynamic new business model that we believe will shake up the local ERP industry," says Gary Lawrence, managing director of SoftworX.

These changes follow the management buy-out of Baan SA in April last year, which provided the SoftworX team the independence to develop and grow its customer offering. "We have had a very successful maiden year in business, trading profitably and having grown substantially, boosted by our buy-out of Brainware`s ERP division. We outsold our major competitors in South Africa in terms of new business deals and the number of seats delivered," says Lawrence.

"Our local partners have recognised our commitment to this market and have pledged over a million Rand in market development funds to SoftworX in 2000. This coupled with a strong pipeline for the year ahead and several significant client deals in the making, is buoying our enthusiasm."

Baan International recently announced a strategic reorganisation to focus the business on e-enabled enterprise solutions. While this is expected to negatively impact Baan`s fourth quarter results, Lawrence explains that this will have limited impact on SoftworX or the local market. "We have been an independent company for almost a year now and while we are still the sole distributor of Baan products in South Africa, we are unaffected by and unrelated to, any Baan International changes. In fact, our independence has allowed us to spend the last year developing our e-commerce business. As our e-business and e-fulfillment solutions are based around Baan`s technology, Baan`s focus in this area will substantially strengthen our offering."

SoftworX will continue to use the globally recognised Baan product range, but will be coupling it with local service offerings to provide a broader range of solutions in the future.