Impressive Enterprise Resource Planning Solution Gets A Little Help From Its Friends
P.J. Jakovljevic - July 27, 2006

Nothing Without a Little Help from its Friends

Strategic Systems International (SSI) (www.ssi-world.com) has been developing, implementing, and supporting packaged enterprise systems since 1982, initially as an information technology (IT) department of Powell Duffryn plc, and since 1998 as a privately held company (till becoming part of Chelford in the early 2000s). Despite impressive product depth and breadth (for instance, customer relationship management [CRM], workflow, traceability, and quality management are provided natively), SSI has longstanding partnerships with several best-of-breed specialists. These specialists include Mitrefinch for human resources (HR), payroll, access control, and time and attendance (T&A); and Greycon for advanced planning and scheduling (APS) tools. They also include several partners, such as Barloworld Optimus, for demand planning; i2i for export documentation; Cognos for business intelligence (BI) and reporting; and Intermec for mobile computing, bar coding, and shop floor data collection. The long-term and embedded nature of these partnerships makes the integration almost seamless and transparent to the customer...