Exel News Stories

Manufacturing Computer Solutions

Businesses will want total control in future

As industry becomes ERP-saturated, Exel Computer Systems' Dr John Ellis foresees a new era of highly customised solutions, tailored by users themselves to their needs.  Brian Wall reports

"This is a tougher market than we've seen for many years.  Budgets are extremely tight, and there's now a saturation of ERP solutions.  For the future, suppliers will have to be able to offer products that meet the needs of a rapidly changing marketplace where customisation is at the forefront."

That is the reaction of Dr John Ellis, CEO of Exel Computer Systems, to what he sees as the "new-century challenges" facing software vendors.  As for users, and the old-century vaunting of business-to-business e-commerce, where systems talk to each other in some seamless Utopian world, Ellis says it's failed to live up to the hype.

"Of course, people are aware of the issues they face in using IT to strengthen their businesses to make them more efficient and productive, but they've seen how difficult it is to try to automate everything.  It means taking the manual component out of the equation completely - and when you are talking of something as vital as the ins and outs of goods from your company, that's a big step to take: too big perhaps."

Fact is, customers now understand their own requirements in a far more sophisticated way - and software vendors can't dictate what they should be doing. Says Ellis "Even where customers are not absolutely sure what it is they need initially, they do know that, in order to get the best competitive advantage out of their systems, it is essential they have easy-to-use tools, and be able to customise solutions quickly within their systems.

Fit for purpose

"Our approach to meeting that need is to offer something we brand as "Fit To Your Business" - where we put the emphasis firmly on customisation.  We've built this into the newly re-architected version of our ERP product EFACS E/8, which has taken the best part of three years to develop.  The monolithic way of developing applications doesn't work any more.  People want applications that are made up of a series of smaller components, and we've rebuilt our solution to reflect that.  Effectively, we are giving customers all of the building blocks they need to create a solution that is far more variable, customisable and flexible, with a much higher degree of solidity and strength."

Ellis points to the experiences of one recent customer to demonstrate the thinking.  "Four or five years ago this user decided to put in a competitor's solution.  Today, even with a team of nine full-time people, they have still not completed it.  It's a difficult monolithic package.  Ours is exactly the opposite."

So does Ellis believe companies that persist with the old formula are bound to fail?  "They are selling mainly into an existing customer base and there is a certain momentum to that," he concedes.  "However, in an open marketplace, that approach is less likely to be sustainable."

And he adds:  "What you have to recognise is the attraction to the customer of a componentised approach.  We've been fortunate recently to take an order for nearly £1 million, but we wouldn't have got that if we hadn't been able to demonstrate the flexibility of the software and the way it can be tuned to suit specific needs and circumstances."

Ellis also points out that in the future, winning confidence will go beyond simply being able to offer ERP per se, no matter how good the solution.  "Often, they want more, even though they may not necessarily identify this at the beginning.  For example, we have workflow and document management built into EFACS, which often turn out to be big pluses for the customer, as they offer longer-term development possibilities"

Ellis also believes the days are largely numbered where suppliers not only sell solutions to the customer, but also reap substantial returns from consultancy, implementation and training.

"One customer of ours is taking EFACS and implementing it themselves across several companies within the group, using disparate systems.  They are setting up a 'centre of excellence' - a select body of their own people - to carry out bespoke development and physical implementation.  We are there only as suppliers of the basic solution and tools."

"In this particular case, that has been the vote winner.  It's a new way of doing business, where the customer has total control, without reliance on a third party.  And I am sure that is how we will see business being done more and more in the years ahead."