TechnologyOne to change model

In an effort to straddle competing customer demands TechnologyOne is to move to a federated product business model.

The model seeks to provide a ‘best in class’ product offering which is still integrated and capable of running on the one platform.

For TechnologyOne executive chairman Adrian Di Marco, enterprise customers were now looking for best of breed from enterprise suite vendors.

“Enterprise suites with HR, BI, supply chain etc are great, but customers are saying that just because you have a full suite, it doesn’t mean we’re going to stick with you for all of offerings,” he said.

“Enterprise vendors needed to step up and commit to best of class products in all categories, and we will guarantee that each product is best in class. The fact that you have an underlying platform or framework is secondary to that.”

Under the new federated product model, each product will be lead by a general manager responsible for integrating R&D, marketing, sales, implementation and support strategies.

“It’s a fundamentally different philosophy, but we’ll change managers, R&D, sales and staff until we get each product right,” Di Marco said.

The announcement follows the release of TechOne’s financial results, which saw a record profit before tax of $9.5 million for the half year ended 31 December 2006, representing a 31 percent increase year on year.

The software vendor achieved a profit after tax of $7.3 million, an increase of 43 percent and a revenue of $39.3 million, an increase of 24 percent.

According to DiMarco, strong R&D expenditure and confusion in the marketplace around Microsoft and Oracle’s ERP strategies, had helped drive the record figures.

“Our competitors’ ERP offerings all have an architecture which is 10 years old now, and have only had face-lifts since then.” he claimed. “This is the first new generation product in the market, and with 200 customers, is now well established.”