Event Summary
The move to open a North American office in Atlanta, GA puts the company in
a prime position to take advantage of the growing small to mid-size company
market segment, a demographic they have been very successful with in other regions
of the world. Prometheus also has offices in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and
distributors around the globe. ``The small to mid-size market has long been
disregarded and undervalued by other ERP vendors. If prospects don't have over
100 million dollars or more in sales, traditional ERP vendors don't answer the
phone,'' said Howard Taylor, president of Pronto Inc. ``We have plans to change
all of that in the U.S. market and recognize the significance of providing a
winning solution to this market.''
The
packaging model that Pronto Inc. uses is already turning heads. PRONTO is available
in a Smart Management Edition (SME) at a fixed 8-user license fee of USD $30,000.
Fixed rate installation and timeframes are also available for the SME edition.
``Pronto's completely integrated modular solution is uniquely qualified to serve
this market. Other vendors either resource a consuming dinosaur, which they
are trying to massage into a mid-market product, or they are piecing together
third-party products where compatibility issues are constant hurdles,'' said
Taylor. ``Currently there is a void of realistic ERP solutions for the small
to mid-size growing company in the U.S. We are entering North America with a
solid, proven solution at a time where companies have fully adopted the need
for technology and are looking for a leader to manage their enterprise resources.
At an affordable price without putting their day to day operations on hold.''
Market
Impact
The Company's geographic diversification into the world's largest market increases
the noise in an already crowded mid-market American ERP space. Although we believe
that Pronto's decision to sell into the crowded market space was somewhat delayed,
we believe that Pronto has an ace up its sleeve in order to overcome barriers
to entry and its low brand recognition hurdles. Its business model will be welcomed
in this market and will give fresh air to an industry that has traditionally
underestimated implementation schedules and costs at the customer's expense.
This will force all major mid-market players to thoroughly re-think their business
models and further focus on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it will present
an additional impediment for the Big 5 ERP vendors in their quest of capturing
a highly coveted mid-market ERP share, where they have currently been achieving
fairly dismal results compared to its smaller brethren.
User
Recommendations
We encourage potential North American users to familiarize themselves with the
newcomer company's value proposition, since we believe that it will be in a
position to better leverage its negotiating position with all vendors involved
in a particular selection exercise. However, users should be wary of Pronto's
global service and support capabilities given that its existing North American
infrastructure is only at an embryonic stage.