In the traditional market for enterprise resource planning (ERP), there is an intense requirement for such solutions, as businesses need every little bit of competitive edge they can obtain.
The demand for business intelligence (BI) and the need to know every little detail of the business at any given time becomes paramount. There is another aspect of the market, referred to as the `Chinese Effect`, which deals with the rise of China as a global presence and the fact that - because materials and labour are so cheap in this market - ERP is generally considered to be less important.
"Because the cost of labour in China is very low, there is less need for such businesses to derive efficiencies in the areas where ERP can help," says SYSPRO`s marketing director Meryl Malcomess.
She says that while the `Chinese Effect` plays a role in certain areas of the global market, Western companies in particular are facing up to a turbulent time and, therefore need to ensure they have every possible string in their bow. "I have never seen so many indices active at one time globally - the banking industry is reeling, there is a trillion loss in the sub-prime rate, and of course there is the potential for lone rogue traders to wreck the fortunes of major companies in the space of days. So organisations simply have to ensure they are managed correctly on an almost minute-by-minute basis," she says.
"This is where an ERP system, with its integration of information and its analysis thereof, is critical to any business wanting to survive and grow in these very harsh trading conditions.
"From a SYSPRO perspective, we have enjoyed 15% growth globally over the past year, and feel that as a very strong boutique player, we can offer organisations something quite unique in this space in terms of the way we partner with them," she says. She points out that SYSPRO SA has recently aligned itself with SA Paralympic runner and world record holder Oscar Pistorius, who recently lost an appeal to be allowed to run at this year`s Olympic Games. The company feels he truly represents the human spirit and the need to adapt and work for one`s goals.
"His extreme desire to compete, his willingness to stand out from the crowd and be a little controversial and his intense competitiveness embody the same elements we feel are important in our ERP solution." "We see it as far more than being a simple software choice. An ERP system is a living entity that is the heartbeat of the organisation, and we must thus always remember the human side to the implementation equation, so that the company`s people are taken into account and are made comfortable with the solution before it is actually implemented.
"SYSPRO, for example, is now spending a lot more time working on the front end before implementing a solution. The idea is to make everyone in the company aware of what is coming." She says that this goes beyond simple change management - it is about capturing the human spirit, the core processes that make a company competitive and focusing on the organisation as a holistic entity. "This may sound more like philosophy than IT, but when the world is changing rapidly, philosophy becomes ever more relevant, and we are now entering a time where new paradigms are being created because what we`re seeing now isn`t like anything we have witnessed before.
"It harks back to that old Chinese Proverb that says: `May you live in interesting times`. Well, these are interesting times and SYSPRO is the company to help you get through them!"
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