Cincom Systems, Inc. (www.cincom.com), a privately held, Cincinnati, OH based provider of software solutions and services primarily to complex manufacturers has possibly been a schoolbook case of longevity in the software business. Since 1968, the company has developed tools for manufacturing, financial, and sales automation applications. Its software manages application development, customer support, database, call center, and manufacturing functions. Recently, in addition to core ERP software, Cincom developed, marketed, and supports software for customer relationship management (CRM), document management, and knowledge systems for sales.
Cincom Manufacturing Business Solution's latest product release covers many new bases, is architecturally adequate, and remains a well-attuned offering for ETO and MRO enterprises. While it is a competitive product that will create buzz in its markets, the road to success is by no means guaranteed.
This, Part 2 of a 3-part note examining Cincom, discusses the Market Impact of the announcements detailed in Part 1.
Part 3 will discuss the Challenges faced by Cincom and makes User Recommendations.
Response to Competition
To at least keep abreast of the competition, Cincom embarked a few years ago on technologically rejuvenating its product, while maintaining its customer base. More recently, the focus has also evolved to target collaborative e-Business and enhancements to the product centered around embedding workflow and messaging alerts (event management) to notify personnel based on defined business process parameters. To that end, the introduction of CONTROLTM, a Web-based ERP system provided a foundation for complex manufacturers to use the Internet as to embrace e-Business and collaboration. Also the system, which now runs under Windows NT and UNIX operating systems, is slated to run on the Windows 2000/XP platform some time in 2003. The database options remain Oracle and Cincom's own proprietary SUPRA™.
With CONTROL, Cincom has also built-in support for BizTalk, Microsoft's eXtensible Markup Language (XML) based integration software product, rendering the system from being a transaction-based environment to an event-enabled environment. These are necessary features, as complex manufacturers are conducting a great deal of collaboration during the phases of design, configuration management, program management, and engineering change management (ECM). Therefore, they are in need of a system, which allows them to publish events internally and externally to other systems and other users, to support this broader, workgroup-based range of collaborative commerce functions.
Today, Cincom addresses the needs of highly engineered, complex and project-based manufacturing and distribution enterprises with two ERP systems - Cincom's PriorityTM (formerly MANAGE:EnterpriseTM) for the small-to-medium (SME) sector, and CONTROL for the larger mid-market enterprises, with more than $50 million in revenues. The company has extended both flagship ERP systems considerably over the last couple of years, with significant R&D investment, to feature much more than conventional ERP functionality, such as CRM, advanced planning and scheduling (APS), and collaborative commerce tools, although some of these are being delivered through partnerships. Both products have the deep costing and procurement functionality that is a necessity for companies that sell complex, highly engineered sub-assemblies and/or products by major projects, or through government contracts.
CONTROL covers all the deep nitty-gritties of manufacturing and engineering (e.g., bills of material (BOM), engineering change control (ECC), revision control, document management, planning (MPS/MRP), shop floor control, project manufacturing control, business intelligence (BI), etc.). The system supports the needs of multi-national companies too through distributed multi-site implementation options, multiple currencies, and multiple languages.
Sales Cycle Support
Outside of the conventional realm of an ERP system, Cincom rounds out the solid CRM/SFA capability throughout the entire sales cycle including prospecting, estimating, product configuration, and proposals creation. The product configurator and interactive selling tool support customer acquisition, quotation, and ordering. Unlike most product configurators, Cincom's graphical knowledge modeling environment makes it easy for non-technical users to quickly develop solutions that assist in the analysis of customer needs, product selection, product configuration, pricing, quotations, and customer support.
This suite is either offered as part of the CONTROL system or as a stand-alone, third-party application, is an interactive selling system that enables complex manufacturers to capture and deliver critical knowledge for customer interaction wherever that may take place - on the road, via the Web, or the phone.
SOURCE:-
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/cincom-sticks-to-control-of-eto-and-mro-part-2-market-impact-16663/
Cincom Manufacturing Business Solution's latest product release covers many new bases, is architecturally adequate, and remains a well-attuned offering for ETO and MRO enterprises. While it is a competitive product that will create buzz in its markets, the road to success is by no means guaranteed.
This, Part 2 of a 3-part note examining Cincom, discusses the Market Impact of the announcements detailed in Part 1.
Part 3 will discuss the Challenges faced by Cincom and makes User Recommendations.
Response to Competition
To at least keep abreast of the competition, Cincom embarked a few years ago on technologically rejuvenating its product, while maintaining its customer base. More recently, the focus has also evolved to target collaborative e-Business and enhancements to the product centered around embedding workflow and messaging alerts (event management) to notify personnel based on defined business process parameters. To that end, the introduction of CONTROLTM, a Web-based ERP system provided a foundation for complex manufacturers to use the Internet as to embrace e-Business and collaboration. Also the system, which now runs under Windows NT and UNIX operating systems, is slated to run on the Windows 2000/XP platform some time in 2003. The database options remain Oracle and Cincom's own proprietary SUPRA™.
With CONTROL, Cincom has also built-in support for BizTalk, Microsoft's eXtensible Markup Language (XML) based integration software product, rendering the system from being a transaction-based environment to an event-enabled environment. These are necessary features, as complex manufacturers are conducting a great deal of collaboration during the phases of design, configuration management, program management, and engineering change management (ECM). Therefore, they are in need of a system, which allows them to publish events internally and externally to other systems and other users, to support this broader, workgroup-based range of collaborative commerce functions.
Today, Cincom addresses the needs of highly engineered, complex and project-based manufacturing and distribution enterprises with two ERP systems - Cincom's PriorityTM (formerly MANAGE:EnterpriseTM) for the small-to-medium (SME) sector, and CONTROL for the larger mid-market enterprises, with more than $50 million in revenues. The company has extended both flagship ERP systems considerably over the last couple of years, with significant R&D investment, to feature much more than conventional ERP functionality, such as CRM, advanced planning and scheduling (APS), and collaborative commerce tools, although some of these are being delivered through partnerships. Both products have the deep costing and procurement functionality that is a necessity for companies that sell complex, highly engineered sub-assemblies and/or products by major projects, or through government contracts.
CONTROL covers all the deep nitty-gritties of manufacturing and engineering (e.g., bills of material (BOM), engineering change control (ECC), revision control, document management, planning (MPS/MRP), shop floor control, project manufacturing control, business intelligence (BI), etc.). The system supports the needs of multi-national companies too through distributed multi-site implementation options, multiple currencies, and multiple languages.
Sales Cycle Support
Outside of the conventional realm of an ERP system, Cincom rounds out the solid CRM/SFA capability throughout the entire sales cycle including prospecting, estimating, product configuration, and proposals creation. The product configurator and interactive selling tool support customer acquisition, quotation, and ordering. Unlike most product configurators, Cincom's graphical knowledge modeling environment makes it easy for non-technical users to quickly develop solutions that assist in the analysis of customer needs, product selection, product configuration, pricing, quotations, and customer support.
This suite is either offered as part of the CONTROL system or as a stand-alone, third-party application, is an interactive selling system that enables complex manufacturers to capture and deliver critical knowledge for customer interaction wherever that may take place - on the road, via the Web, or the phone.
SOURCE:-
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/cincom-sticks-to-control-of-eto-and-mro-part-2-market-impact-16663/
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