Event
Summary
On November 10, ROI Systems, Inc., a privately held provider of extended
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions for mid-market manufacturing
enterprises, announced the offering of XML-based EDI for its clients.
ROI's EDI solution will enable users of its flagship MANAGE 2000 software
suite to conduct e-commerce over the Web with trading partners across
the supply chain.
"While
ROI's existing EDI solution satisfies the electronic commerce requirements
of most mid-market manufacturers today, we want to be able to offer Web-based
EDI for our clients when they want it or when their trading partners require
it." says Bill Pisarra, ROI's executive vice president of marketing. "By
integrating TIE Commerce's xVision product, we are providing cutting edge
XML-based EDI technology. We recognize that increasing competitive pressures
are turning manufacturers to the Web to extend their market reach, and
we are ready to support those efforts. XML technology is a key component
of ROI's technology strategy. It is one of the languages we are using
currently in product development, so we are pleased to be able to extend
its capabilities through our EDI offering, as well."
ROI
has a long-standing relationship with TIE Commerce. TIE Commerce's xVision
extension to their eVision product supports all ANSI X.12 and UN-EDIFACT
documents as well as any well-formed XML document structure. With its
support of emerging XML standards, such as ebXML, xVision delivers data
transformation and integration support for Internet trading.
Market
Impact
For more than two decades, ROI Systems has managed to deliver strong discrete
manufacturing functionality and solid customer support, although at the
expense of modest growth and cautious new technology introduction. As
a result, the company is not regarded as a thought leader in the market
and its customer base amounts only to over 600, almost exclusively North
American enterprises. However, on the positive side, ROI makes every effort
to ensure an easy and bug free migration path when introducing new technology
and/or product releases. Very impressive is the fact that all its customers
are running on the latest product version release.
Offering
XML-based EDI to its customers is in tune with ROI's basic approach to
introduce only tried-and-true necessary new technologies. Also, its recent
alliance with Agile Software, a vendor of collaborative manufacturing
commerce solutions, is another move in ROI's quest to prudently continue
expanding Internet deployment that supports business-to-business (B2B)
e-commerce and supply chain collaboration. However, the company has still
seemingly been inactive regarding applications hosting and Internet exchange
(marketplace) initiatives. Furthermore, its product has not been fully
Web enabled and does not provide many standard interfaces to other products,
which all are key tenets of the new Internet economy. One should expect
announcements along these lines in the future.
User
Recommendations
ROI customers should certainly benefit from the latest product enhancements.
As for potential customers, we generally recommend including ROI Systems
in a long list of an enterprise application selection to lower-end of
the mid-market companies (with $5M-$200M in revenue) and divisions of
larger enterprises in English-speaking countries, which have limited IT
budget and conservative IT strategy, and have significant discrete manufacturing
requirements, while currently not needing complex CRM and B2B e-commerce
functionality.
ROI
should be included on a short list in any selection within the SME market
where configure-to-order assembly and field service modules are the main
pillars of an enterprise application. The industries that would most likely
benefit from using MANAGE 2000 are electronics, industrial equipment,
consumer products, and medical devices. Users come from various types
of discrete manufacturers, operating in one or multiple facilities. The
product supports more than one manufacturing mode, including configure-to-order
(CTO), just-in-time (JIT), high-volume repetitive, make-to-stock (MTS),
and make-to-order (MTO).
Multi-national
and companies looking for a broader functionality beyond traditional ERP
boundaries from a single vendor may benefit from evaluating other products
at this stage. Current and potential users may want to inquire about the
company's plans regarding Internet marketplaces in their respective industries.