To address the multinational needs of enterprises and to create "one face for each customer", Exact Software, a division of Delft, the Netherlands-based Exact Holding N.V. (Amsterdam: EXACT.AS, www.exactsoftware.com), has taken steps to offer Exact Globe, the latest generation of back-office enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to North American customers. This effort, which began in 2005, should enable customers to benefit from an extensive range of ERP solutions.
Part Two of the Exact Software Continues with Its Share of Judicious Acquisitions series.
Early adopters of Exact Globe have mainly been divisions of companies that have long been using the product elsewhere. However, the vendor is planning to use early 2006 to prominently roll out its flagship product Exact Globe Enterprise across North America. Exact Globe Enterprise is a multinational ERP software suite that offers manufacturers multilingual, multicurrency capabilities that local offerings of Exact lack. Throughout 2005, Globe has been in controlled release in North America and there have been about fifteen test sites for the product. The goal is to reach twenty sites in 2006. General availability (GA) of the product is also expected in early 2006.
For background information on Exact see Exact Software Continues with Its Share of Judicious Acquisitions.
This initiative signals the start of a long-term migration to a single ERP platform, but by no means will users of systems other than local Exact ERP be forced to undergo any type of conversion soon. Still, for some time now, Exact has been focusing its research and development (R&D) efforts on a "single product" strategy, leveraging its so-called One-X (meaning one Exact) architecture framework. One-X means there is a single database (i.e., Microsoft SQL Server) and transaction table between the respective back-office products of Exact Globe or Macola ES, each with the e-Synergy front-office or business process management (BPM) product.
Initially, both product combinations were to provide customers with the full integration of back- and front-office solutions, albeit with different focuses, strengths, and markets. For example, the Exact Globe and e-Synergy combination targets non-manufacturing markets outside North America; Macola ES and e-Synergy is geared towards manufacturers. The idea is to eventually converge these three product lines into a unified global product some time in the distant future.
In the meantime, new versions of all the acquired product lines have been developed on the same architecture, which should ensure long-term economies of scale. It should also ensure the product integration of acquired brands, and product continuity for customers. To that end, Exact is using a common object repository to simplify development across its products, so that Exact Globe and Macola ES could "borrow" modules from each other accordingly, such as the warehousing, electronic data interchange (EDI) or shop floor control components from Macola ES. For more information, see Exact Software—Working Diligently Towards the "One Exact" Synergy.
However, because Exact Globe has superior multinational and process management (including grant-based) functionality, it will likely be given the "right of way" to become Exact's strategic product for its global base. It is an especially promising product since it is the first product with multinational capabilities to be offered to the North American market. As such, it should ultimately help attract new clients. In particular, while all four of the North American packages have the ability to interface with e-Synergy, none have particularly strong multilingual and multicurrency capabilities. In Globe, this functionality was built from the ground up, which is critical in addressing the needs of North America-based multinational manufacturers.
Exact Globe has extensive functionality, including financials, distribution, light manufacturing, manufacturing resource planning (MRP), a product configurator, and project management. Exact has typically targeted small and medium businesses ranging with $10 million to $50 million (USD) in revenue, as well as manufacturing and distribution companies and divisions of multinationals. This is a great potential market because parent companies often use a tier one product from SAP or Oracle (including PeopleSoft), but these systems often have unnecessary functionality for the various divisions.
Globe, which has solid, but not excessive functionality, was built to integrate with other systems using extended markup language (XML), which has become the standard for integration. The product is also appropriately priced. The configuration includes e-Synergy, general ledger (GL), accounts receivable (AR), accounts payable (AP), distribution, order processing, inventory control, and purchasing and costs about $20,000 (USD) plus $1,200 (USD) per named user (any employee who would access the system). Ongoing annual service and support costs typically average an additional $20,000 (USD). Users can also buy e-Synergy as a standalone system for $10,000 (USD), plus $1,000 (USD) per named user.
Thus, as part of the multinational push, Exact North America has also created what it internally calls the International Parenting Group, a sales team dedicated to the needs of companies operating in multiple countries, since these enterprises need to be sold to, serviced, and supported in a different way. Though these companies want to run their North American headquarters office from the same database, they still operate in different countries and have different payroll, tax law, and distribution problems. Currently, Exact has roughly 30 salespeople in the International Parenting group, which services about 1,000 multinational clients. Value added resellers (VAR) can also benefit from these services. This group will also take care of all the logistics, communications, proposal writing, and implementation. At the same time, it will protect the partner's profit margin and all of this will be done in a process that is seamless to the prospect or customer.
Ironically North American prospects might consider Globe to be a brand new product; however, Exact built it twenty years ago for companies in the Netherlands that needed an accounting package that could handle multiple currencies. It focuses on automating traditional back-office ERP processes containing structured information (transactions), such as financial, human resources (HR), sales, marketing, logistics, and manufacturing processes. Furthermore, it is fully localized, so that all legislative, fiscal, and judicial obligations are met.
Typically, the product is used by a select number of users who are responsible for transactional actions, such as moving goods, buying, selling, budgets, etc. While the number of users may be small, they have to be well-trained in the application and require a powerful environment with all the functionality that Microsoft Windows can offer in terms of ease of use. Therefore, Exact Globe is developed in Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, with a basic technical framework in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 to ensure programming efficiency and consistency. All data is stored in the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database, whereas the supported client platforms are Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Key functional strengths of Exact Globe include
* support for fiscal, legal, and commercial regimes of more than twenty legislations;
* provides financial accounting, cash flow management, asset and contract management, project management and service management, all seamlessly integrated into a financial management system that is not traditionally general ledger centric;
* provides industry templates for manufacturing and distribution businesses;
* streamlines international payroll and improves document management;
* uses one central database for recording transactions, documents, and activities;
* uses classification of documents, making access relatively simple and easy; and
* reduces steps (data entries) needed to process a closed-loop transaction from the quote via order capture and fulfillment and shipping to payment.
Hence, Exact Globe Enterprise targets multinational companies running within global markets by offering multiple international legislation compliance, and strong project accounting and product management (in terms of R&D and intellectual property-intensive environments) capabilities, albeit mainly light manufacturing/assembly and distribution ones.
Candidates that are likely to use the solution are document-centric companies, including businesses in consulting, engineering, biotechnology research, intellectual property management, and software development companies. Also, these are project-based organizations, where a high percentage of employees require access to the system, and where trading partners require access to projects in back-office ERP systems. Also, many other Exact products worldwide have "borrowed" the Exact Globe architecture and functionality, such as Exact Macola ES in North America, Grote Beer for Windows and Exact Compact in the Netherlands, Exact Pro and Exact Pro Lohn XL/XXL in Germany, Cubic Pro in Belgium, and Exact Globe 2004 Enterprise in the Netherlands and in the International Group.
Part Two of the Exact Software Continues with Its Share of Judicious Acquisitions series.
Early adopters of Exact Globe have mainly been divisions of companies that have long been using the product elsewhere. However, the vendor is planning to use early 2006 to prominently roll out its flagship product Exact Globe Enterprise across North America. Exact Globe Enterprise is a multinational ERP software suite that offers manufacturers multilingual, multicurrency capabilities that local offerings of Exact lack. Throughout 2005, Globe has been in controlled release in North America and there have been about fifteen test sites for the product. The goal is to reach twenty sites in 2006. General availability (GA) of the product is also expected in early 2006.
For background information on Exact see Exact Software Continues with Its Share of Judicious Acquisitions.
This initiative signals the start of a long-term migration to a single ERP platform, but by no means will users of systems other than local Exact ERP be forced to undergo any type of conversion soon. Still, for some time now, Exact has been focusing its research and development (R&D) efforts on a "single product" strategy, leveraging its so-called One-X (meaning one Exact) architecture framework. One-X means there is a single database (i.e., Microsoft SQL Server) and transaction table between the respective back-office products of Exact Globe or Macola ES, each with the e-Synergy front-office or business process management (BPM) product.
Initially, both product combinations were to provide customers with the full integration of back- and front-office solutions, albeit with different focuses, strengths, and markets. For example, the Exact Globe and e-Synergy combination targets non-manufacturing markets outside North America; Macola ES and e-Synergy is geared towards manufacturers. The idea is to eventually converge these three product lines into a unified global product some time in the distant future.
In the meantime, new versions of all the acquired product lines have been developed on the same architecture, which should ensure long-term economies of scale. It should also ensure the product integration of acquired brands, and product continuity for customers. To that end, Exact is using a common object repository to simplify development across its products, so that Exact Globe and Macola ES could "borrow" modules from each other accordingly, such as the warehousing, electronic data interchange (EDI) or shop floor control components from Macola ES. For more information, see Exact Software—Working Diligently Towards the "One Exact" Synergy.
However, because Exact Globe has superior multinational and process management (including grant-based) functionality, it will likely be given the "right of way" to become Exact's strategic product for its global base. It is an especially promising product since it is the first product with multinational capabilities to be offered to the North American market. As such, it should ultimately help attract new clients. In particular, while all four of the North American packages have the ability to interface with e-Synergy, none have particularly strong multilingual and multicurrency capabilities. In Globe, this functionality was built from the ground up, which is critical in addressing the needs of North America-based multinational manufacturers.
Exact Globe has extensive functionality, including financials, distribution, light manufacturing, manufacturing resource planning (MRP), a product configurator, and project management. Exact has typically targeted small and medium businesses ranging with $10 million to $50 million (USD) in revenue, as well as manufacturing and distribution companies and divisions of multinationals. This is a great potential market because parent companies often use a tier one product from SAP or Oracle (including PeopleSoft), but these systems often have unnecessary functionality for the various divisions.
Globe, which has solid, but not excessive functionality, was built to integrate with other systems using extended markup language (XML), which has become the standard for integration. The product is also appropriately priced. The configuration includes e-Synergy, general ledger (GL), accounts receivable (AR), accounts payable (AP), distribution, order processing, inventory control, and purchasing and costs about $20,000 (USD) plus $1,200 (USD) per named user (any employee who would access the system). Ongoing annual service and support costs typically average an additional $20,000 (USD). Users can also buy e-Synergy as a standalone system for $10,000 (USD), plus $1,000 (USD) per named user.
Thus, as part of the multinational push, Exact North America has also created what it internally calls the International Parenting Group, a sales team dedicated to the needs of companies operating in multiple countries, since these enterprises need to be sold to, serviced, and supported in a different way. Though these companies want to run their North American headquarters office from the same database, they still operate in different countries and have different payroll, tax law, and distribution problems. Currently, Exact has roughly 30 salespeople in the International Parenting group, which services about 1,000 multinational clients. Value added resellers (VAR) can also benefit from these services. This group will also take care of all the logistics, communications, proposal writing, and implementation. At the same time, it will protect the partner's profit margin and all of this will be done in a process that is seamless to the prospect or customer.
Ironically North American prospects might consider Globe to be a brand new product; however, Exact built it twenty years ago for companies in the Netherlands that needed an accounting package that could handle multiple currencies. It focuses on automating traditional back-office ERP processes containing structured information (transactions), such as financial, human resources (HR), sales, marketing, logistics, and manufacturing processes. Furthermore, it is fully localized, so that all legislative, fiscal, and judicial obligations are met.
Typically, the product is used by a select number of users who are responsible for transactional actions, such as moving goods, buying, selling, budgets, etc. While the number of users may be small, they have to be well-trained in the application and require a powerful environment with all the functionality that Microsoft Windows can offer in terms of ease of use. Therefore, Exact Globe is developed in Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, with a basic technical framework in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 to ensure programming efficiency and consistency. All data is stored in the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database, whereas the supported client platforms are Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Key functional strengths of Exact Globe include
* support for fiscal, legal, and commercial regimes of more than twenty legislations;
* provides financial accounting, cash flow management, asset and contract management, project management and service management, all seamlessly integrated into a financial management system that is not traditionally general ledger centric;
* provides industry templates for manufacturing and distribution businesses;
* streamlines international payroll and improves document management;
* uses one central database for recording transactions, documents, and activities;
* uses classification of documents, making access relatively simple and easy; and
* reduces steps (data entries) needed to process a closed-loop transaction from the quote via order capture and fulfillment and shipping to payment.
Hence, Exact Globe Enterprise targets multinational companies running within global markets by offering multiple international legislation compliance, and strong project accounting and product management (in terms of R&D and intellectual property-intensive environments) capabilities, albeit mainly light manufacturing/assembly and distribution ones.
Candidates that are likely to use the solution are document-centric companies, including businesses in consulting, engineering, biotechnology research, intellectual property management, and software development companies. Also, these are project-based organizations, where a high percentage of employees require access to the system, and where trading partners require access to projects in back-office ERP systems. Also, many other Exact products worldwide have "borrowed" the Exact Globe architecture and functionality, such as Exact Macola ES in North America, Grote Beer for Windows and Exact Compact in the Netherlands, Exact Pro and Exact Pro Lohn XL/XXL in Germany, Cubic Pro in Belgium, and Exact Globe 2004 Enterprise in the Netherlands and in the International Group.
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