REGIONAL CHANNELS
EPIC ERP
South Africa’s ERP in the cloud
Epicor and Microsoft
specialist partner has made
Epicor cloud available for
South African businesses.
By Arun Shankar.
Stuart Scanlon, Founder and Managing
Director, epic ERP.
S
outh Africa-based epic ERP is
an ERP shop back to front, is
how its Founder and Managing
Director, Stuart Scanlon, describes the
business. A total of 80 per cent of its
revenue is generated around the Epicor
Software platform. This includes on-
premises or cloud, Epicor ERP, Epicor
Cloud, Epicor iScala and Epicor HCM.
epic ERP also generates revenue from
Microsoft Extensibility projects and out
of generating intellectual property from
organisational data.
Recent technology changes to Epicor
ERP are being leveraged by epic ERP.
Scanlon points out that Microsoft
components can be snapped into Epicor,
building increased functionality into the
platform. “The entire Epicor architecture
is native to snapping in Microsoft pieces.
What it has done is brought a huge amount
of functionality into one single platform. So
now, what you’re able to do is throw these
pieces together and you have got literally
keys to a huge array of systems. We can
extend the functionality and it is a big
strategy for us,” he adds.
As an enterprise application, Epicor’s
strength lies in the manufacturing supply
chain and is well suited to the complex
interplay of processes. epic ERP provides
solutions and guidance for financials,
supply chain, manufacturing and human
capital management. Recent wins include
Mustek in South Africa, an assembler and
distributor of ICT products; packaging
business TEKCO; Professional Shopfitters
based in Johannesburg; and thread
manufacturer Coats, based in Mauritius
and Madagascar.
A key driver of change around ERP
includes the move away from customisation
and usage of an out-of-the-box ERP
solution either on-premises or in the cloud
with rapid implementation of months
rather than years. Scanlon explains that
trying to rebuild something that already
exists using a packaged application takes
longer. “They are trying to sort of build
something that pre-exists and ERP is sort of
packaged in and out of the box. So, it takes
you a lot longer to get it up and running if
you’re trying to redesign a system.”
An offshoot of using out-of-the-box
ERP, whether on-premises or in the cloud,
is the downsizing of change management
and other consultancy fees. Scanlon points
out that consultancy fees as a ratio between
software and maintenance is changing and
consultancy fees are shrinking.
In the face of increased competitive
and economic pressures, businesses
can no longer go through the extended
implementation cycle of customising an
ERP to match their internal processes.
Increasingly they are ready to accept
an 80 per cent ERP match with their
internal processes instead of 100 per cent
match, trading that for a year saved in
not customising an out-of-the-box ERP
solution. In any case, with the faster
pace of business inflexion, most of this
extended ERP customisation would
probably be obsolete by the time it is
completed and implemented.
Moreover, epic ERP now sees an
increased demand for rapid time to
value implementation, and this includes
businesses with customised solutions.
“People are looking for quick wins and they
need that agility to run their business. A
lot of people are realising they are always
behind the curve. So, what has happened
is we have started to give that and people
get it very easily. We are converting a lot of
people running custom ERP and disparate
systems because they are looking for rapid
value,” says Scanlon.
Another departure is the movement
to much higher value addition other
than commodity report generation. The
emphasis is now on the ERP system giving
rapid and relevant information to the
end-user that is contextual to the person
using it. Everything is about the data and
the database that resides in the ERP and
giving it to people that can interpret and
understand it. The challenge in all this is
how to find the sweet spots and how to find
the value that can change the business.
In order to accelerate adoption of
Epicor Cloud, epic ERP has partnered
with CentralCloud to bring clients within
Sub-Saharan Africa the flexibility and
scalability of an end-to-end, feature rich,
cloud-based ERP solution. epic ERP is
also testing Microsoft Azure and uses all
Microsoft technologies that underpin the
standard Epicor solution. “epic ERP is the
first value-added Epicor reseller to provide
this functionality within Sub-Saharan
Africa,” says Scanlon.
CentralCloud is associated with Alviva
Holdings, one of Africa’s largest providers
of ICT products and services. epic ERP is
now able to provide Epicor ERP within
the cloud for Sub-Saharan businesses,
with a zero-hardware footprint and a
highly secure, available environment. The
solution brings flexibility, scalability and
a feature rich, cloud-based ERP solution.
The upshot here is that African clients
no longer have to make an additional
hardware investment to derive value from
their ERP software.
For any ERP-run enterprise, the
implication of an ERP system downtime
is almost unthinkable, as customers
stand to lose millions. For Scanlon, the
top requirement for a cloud computing
specialist partner was always exceptional
reliability. epic ERP and CentralCloud have
now partnered for more than six months,
and it is within this relationship that epic
ERP has found the flexibility, scalability and
reliability it has sought in a cloud partner.
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