Value added resellers back in fashion

Good service, coverage and availability are the watchwords when ERP (enterprise resource planning) business software becomes more of a commodity. And ERP developer SSA Global Technologies, now firmly in resurgence, clearly believes that’s what’s happening, with the news that it’s seriously ramping up its distributor programme for 2003. Brian Kite, formerly in charge of SSA’s Max ERP development and deployment business following its acquisition from Fujitsu/ICL, is new vice president of channel strategy. He says the move will drive the current 7% SSA revenue from VARs “to 20% within 12 months and, with other acquisitions, to 40% within two years.” UK managing director Nick Sigurdsson adds that for the foreseeable future this has to be the route to increasing new business for BPCS ERP and its other application offerings. With an eye to license sales, if not service revenue, he believes the move to overt channel sales on a world-wide basis is “long overdue”. The firm is now actively reviewing and growing its channel partners for “standards of service and support”, says Kite, and looking for a relatively small number of providers which will be “accredited to SSA’s own people standards”. He’s offering contracts ranging from full service provision, to subcontractor, distributor and exclusive franchise holder with geographic and/or specific industry coverage. It’s an obvious, but also in a sense slightly puzzling development. SSA’s earlier BPCS ERP had been a largely VAR (value added reseller) sold system until the late ‘90s, when the company, like many others, went for more direct sales around the world – thus gaining control, service revenue, feedback, prominence and the rest. Turning up the wick on its distributors again flies in the face of the current trend among the bigger ERP boys for ever more in-house sales and project work to boost revenues from at least their existing customers in tougher times. And although SSA’s now quite wide range of acquired products and associated markets indisputably needs the channel sales approach, Kite is clear that this is just as much about its heartland manufacturing markets as anything else. Kite makes the point that with SSA’s roots still largely in the IBM iSeries (AS/400) camp, less IT literate manufacturing SME users will like the accredited channel strategy. “They prefer to buy from local VARs,” he says. He cites successful growth globally through the use of VARs of his Max Unix and Windows ERP suite– which incidentally now sports new APS (advanced planning and scheduling), CRM (customer relationship management), warehouse management and service management specd from SSA’s BPCS developments, but coded for manufacturing SMEs. Nevertheless, there is also a clue in the sheer range of products resulting from SSA’s recent acquisition of interBiz, from Computer Associates, and of Infinium – particularly the HR products – which are best addressed by distributors. And there’s the Microsoft angle. Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS), now with its Navision and Great Plains application suites for SMEs in manufacturing and beyond, is on record as going for growth through its existing VAR model. Technology and service expectations and offerings are changing for SMEs for the better. Says Kite: “[MBS] will be formidable if they get their act together, but it will take them two years before they can absorb what they’ve acquired… We’re well ahead with development and the end-to-end product range.” However, he concedes that the picture might be rather different “in two to three years.” And now is the time to make metaphorical hay. SSA’s current network of more than 80 channel affiliates covers Latin America, Asia/Pacific/Japan as well as Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the plan is to expand that in all the regions including North America. Kite will be implementing a certification process for all affiliates. “This process will ensure that SSA GT clients will receive the highest level of customer service,” says Kite. “I am working with our regions to build upon SSA GT’s existing channel partnerships around the globe to include acquired companies and their channel outlets.”