SSA GT bows to customer pressure for longer term support and new web technology

SSA Global Technologies (SSA GT), the reborn BPCS enterprise software (ERP) developer, yesterday introduced its v8.0 offering to the UK at the user group meeting in Solihull, following its launch at the Boca Raton, Florida US user conference last month and initial release in June – and announced several important additions. The firm claims some 70 new clients either already implementing, migrating to or reviewing v8.0 since June – in industries including automotive supply, consumer electronics, consumer goods, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, chemical and general manufacturing. Martin Ambrose, vice president SSA GT Solutions Management & Marketing, says its extended e-business and supply chain functionality ‘footprint’ are key to the strong uptake, along with SSA GT’s improved services, its partner programme and, just as important, its encouraging development route map. Most significant for the lion’s share of BPCS users is the announcement that SSA GT is withdrawing its ‘sunset date’ for the old BPCS 4.05/CD, now called ‘BPCS Enable’. Whereas users were being faced with the choice of upgrading or moving to a competitive system, they can now choose to stay put and be supported for as long as it takes. Says Ambrose: “All our products, v6, v8 and CD are now being supported. With some of our users having 25 divisions on BPCS CD, this is the only sensible approach for us to look after our customers.” However, he adds most core ERP development and cross-functional enhancements are proceeding with v8 only, although there is to be some backward compatibility. BPCS V8 includes more than 100 significant functional and technical enhancements. They include Lean Manufacturing Process (LMP), Trade Funds Management and FDA compliance – the latter providing vertical market functionality, the former with much wider appeal. It also sports new applications for e-Commerce (order processing, material buying and selling, and material order fulfilment), Collaborative Commerce (supply chain operations), Enterprise Resource Management (service and sales force automation) and Business Intelligence (sales analysis etc). Seems the message is that if you want the best from the new applications, you really need v8. Nevertheless, BPCS v6 and v8 users both get XML messaging in Open Application Group (OAG) standards, with the release of a web client and BPCS XML processor – and BPCS Enable users also get “a level of data mapping for XML transactions”. And on the e-business development side, SSA’s Process Manager graphical business process mapping and development tool is now integrated with all of this. Ambrose says: “It will be key to handling migrations from existing ERP systems to B2B.” He says the solutions provide clients with the tools to exploit the benefits to be had from advanced web technologies. “Clients can realise improved efficiency, organisational effectiveness and reduced time-to-market. By helping companies optimise business processes, they can maximise revenue and profit opportunities in the short-term and plan their migration to later versions of BPCS when the time is right.” As for partnerships, Ambrose says SSA GT enlisted the help of analyst AMR prior to making its choices. The results of that dialogue are SSA’s choice of Logility as its partner for supply chain management applications, Applix for CRM (customer relationship management), Digital Union for e-procurement covering MRO products and reverse auctions initially and then public and private web exchanges, and Cognos for business intelligence. Beyond the software itself, Ambrose says there are also significant enhancements to SSA’s services. Apart from more support staff, SSA’s maintenance ‘OnGoing Support’ (OGS) users also get a better website, with a range of additional services, including vertical industry and generic forums. Meanwhile, speaking of SSA GT’s immediate future, Ambrose says that the firm’s harmonisation programme is now being accelerated. “Database changes will be out in March 2002, and features and functions in November 2002… Our many large customers – Epson, Heinz, Sony – need commonality of standards.” And for the future, he adds that SSA’s web portal technology, due out by the end of this year, will be developed beyond the routine personalised browser-based application and data access. “We are going to continue with enhancements, but also tie together our portal technology with our Process Manager tool and enterprise application integration to tie in OEM solutions.”