The recent Epicor Insights 2013 conference highlighted how the 2012 Solarsoft acquisition strengthens Epicor’s presence in the lumber and building materials, wholesale distribution, print and packaging, and automotive sectors. In addition, Solarsoft gives Epicor new presence in process manufacturing (i.e., food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, mills, metals, and chemicals), whereas Epicor has traditionally focused on discrete manufacturing.

One byproduct of Solarsoft’s acquisition was Epicor Mattec, a standalone manufacturing execution system (MES), for which there reportedly is growing customer demand among manufacturing organizations worldwide. The product is also creating new opportunities for Epicor as an integrated solution with its next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Epicor ERP (a.k.a., Epicor 9).

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A day after a major win in India, Epicor announced that the Water World Group of Companies has selected to implement the flagship Epicor enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution in its offices in Egypt and the USA. Water World is Egypt’s leading water treatment company that specializes in water treatment systems, including technology used to purify and filter potable water.

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April 2013 started with a notable win for Epicor in India as Pradeep Metals Limited, a leading manufacturer of closed-die forgings for the oil and gas, valve, instrumentation, petrochemical, and general engineering industries around the world, announced that is has selected the Epicor enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. The company chose Epicor because it met the company’s business requirements to be easy to use and to have a flexible technology platform.

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The human capital management (HCM) space is apparently becoming attractive and important to even upper mid-market vendors that have traditionally focused on manufacturing and distribution, and have mainly partnered for HCM capabilities. After Infor’s recent acquisition of Certpoint Systems for learning management (to add to its HCM portfolio that came from the merger with Lawson Software), Epicor announced general availability of its latest Epicor HCM version 5.7.1.

Stemming from the 2010 acquisition of Spectrum Human Resource Systems Corporation, Epicor HCM is a human resource information system (HRIS) that automates HR processes and enables companies to track, manage, and analyze employee data throughout the entire employee lifecycle. Epicor HCM currently covers the realms of recruiting, onboarding, learning & development, goals & objectives, and performance management.

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While most of Epicor’s recent wins revolve around its flagship Epicor 9 (a.k.a., Epicor ERP) product suite, the vendor recently announced that North Carolina Mutual Wholesale Drug Company has selected Epicor Trading Partner Document Exchange (TDX) as its electronic data interchange (EDI) application, replacing the company’s previous EDI solution provider. Mutual Drug is based in Durham, North Carolina, and is a wholesaler for pharmacies in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Formed as a cooperative, Mutual Drug is owned and managed by its member stores and sells only to independent pharmacies.

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Epicor, a global provider of business applications for manufacturing, distribution, retail, and services organizations, recently announced it has fine-tuned its channel strategy to drive growth opportunities in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. As part of this expansion strategy, Epicor will be looking at recruiting new partners, particularly for key markets such as France, Germany, Russia, and Benelux, and boosting its channel presence in the Middle East and South Africa. Epicor will be looking at recruiting partners that already have enterprise resource planning (ERP) experience, typically with knowledge of larger systems, such as SAP, Oracle, Infor, or some Microsoft Dynamics solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

One major cross-sale opportunity in the recent merger of Epicor and Activant into a new Epicor was unveiled on November 20, 2012, when Epicor announced the availability of the Epicor ICE business architecture for the Epicor Prophet 21 wholesale distribution enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.

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The recently held Epicor Insights 2012 user conference was the very first one to combine former Epicor and Activant customers. Reportedly, there were 4,000 attendees, including 3,000 customers and 400 vendor partners.

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I recently had the opportunity, during Epicor’s global customer conference, to talk with Chad Meyer, director of product marketing, and he shared with me some of the highlights of Epicor’s vision and strategy for cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP). Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the 11^th Vendor Shootout^TM for ERP event, which took place in Boston in mid-August 2011. I was able to experience this co-opetitive gathering of eight solution providers and several dozen end users seeking new solutions first-hand as a neutral (and yet very active) observer (for the inner workings of the event, see my article Demystifying “Vendor Shootout for ERP” events).

My blog post then mentioned the following four enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions (based on my partial attendance of their scripted demos): Infor ERP SyteLine, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Epicor 9, and Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. Part 2 of this blog series will conclude with the remaining four products that I had the chance to see at great length.

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Over the last few years I have repeatedly seen ads for the Vendor Shootout^TM for ERP event appearing in TEC’s website banners and newsletters. In addition, I would come across mentions of the event in other industry magazines, press releases (PRs), social media feeds, Web site banners, and so on and so forth.

Needless to say, I was curious (and dismayed by my lack of information) about the event that even carried the “Moderated by TEC” tagline on its official logo. Even more, every now and again various software vendors’ staff and other industry contacts would ask me about the event (probably expecting my in-depth knowledge), and I would somewhat embarrassingly have to pass them on to my selection services colleagues in the Montreal HQ office (who have been directly involved with the event).

Well, in mid-August 2011, the 11^th Vendor Shootout for ERP event took place in my neck of the woods, Boston, and I was able to experience it first-hand as a neutral (and yet very active) observer. What follows now is my report on the event and my take on several vendors’ demos that I attended. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series introduced Epicor Software Corporation’s set of tools called the Epicor Productivity Pyramid. The Pyramid enables one of Epicor’s main business strategies: to extend the value of several of its mature enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications by making enterprise data readily and easily available to all stakeholders.

My blog post then zoomed on to the Epicor Portal solution, a cross-platform querying tool that empowers business workers to find and share information within and across Epicor’s diverse line of business (LOB) applications.  Epicor now provides the database schemas for most of its ERP applications to allow business workers (a.k.a. information workers and end-users) to easily create queries or views and communicate their findings.

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About two years ago, Epicor Software Corporation launched its next-generation converged product Epicor 9 (a.k.a. Epicor ERP [evaluate this solution]), which was covered at great length in my 2009 series. Over 250 customers have thus far gone live on Epicor 9, with roughly 1,700 units shipped in 21 months.

If these numbers are not overly impressive to some, they are not too shabby either in light of the current sluggish economic milieu. Epicor has shipped more than 50,000 seats to over 50 countries and has Epicor 9 customers live in every region of the world. I believe there are not too many vendors that have had such success in this global downturn.

Meanwhile, the vendor also launched a later product release, Epicor 9.05, in early 2010. Epicor 9.05’s new features can be classified into the following three general categories:

1. Industry-specific capabilities, such as an upgraded project management module, an improved e-commerce component (including features such as search engine optimization [SEO] and multichannel order management), lean manufacturing, preventive maintenance, etc.
2. Improvements to global financial management capabilities, as the 9.05 release is currently available in more than 40 countries and should be released in more than 50 by the year’s end
3. A mobile device access and reporting framework, aimed at casual and un-tethered business users

I suspect that at the upcoming Epicor Perspectives 2010 user conference there will be much talk about the recently released Epicor Express [evaluate this solution], Epicor 9’s cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) edition, which is a true multi-tenant Software as a Service (SaaS) offering oriented to job shops and small manufacturers, with subscription pricing.

In addition, there will likely be some sneak previews of what is coming in the next Epicor 9 release (dubbed 9.1, I assume), especially in terms of the so-called Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 social software enablement. But Epicor 9 is only the latter part of Epicor’s overall “Protect, Extend, and Converge” approach of incrementally catering to its existing client base on current individual product lines (without forcing a wholesale “big bang” upgrade).   Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series positioned all four Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) product lines and concluded that Microsoft Dynamics AX [evaluate this product] has been selected as the ace and global “platform” player in selected industries in the Dynamics ERP lineup. In other words, the product has been providing an industry-enabling layer upon which certified partners can build their sub-vertical solutions to cater to the so-called long- tail niches.

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Part 1 of this blog series outlined Epicor 9 (a.k.a., Epicor ERP [evaluate this product]), Epicor Software’s next-generation converged product suite. A similar feat is yet to be accomplished even by mighty Oracle within Oracle Fusion Applications.

The article also discussed Epicor’s accompanying “protect, extend, and converge” strategy for providing customers with a migration path choice at their own timetable and convenience. The article then went on to dig deeper and explain a number of enabling technologies and concepts within Epicor 9, starting with Epicor BPM (Business Process Management).

Part 2 then analyzed the major enabling concepts and technologies within the product, such as Epicor ICE (Internet Component Environment) 2.0 Business Architecture, which is based on Epicor TrueSOA™ and includes the Epicor Everywhere Framework™. The article also dug deeper into the suite’s built-in business intelligence (BI) and enterprise performance management (EPM) capabilities.

Part 3 of this blog series analyzes further unconventional and nifty tools and technologies within Epicor 9, and concludes the series with some insights into the product’s future enhancements. Read the rest of this entry »