Exact Software Review

Our review was written by Michael Burns and published in the CAmagazine in August 2005. Although the atricle is a few years old, it should still provide a good starting point in your evaluation. We will try to provide more up to date review in the near future.

Introduction

Exact Software is a leading player in the European mid-market for enterprise resource planning systems, and has recently been gaining momentum in North America. It entered the market with the purchase of a number of ERP systems, including Macola, JobBOSS, MAX, and Alliance/MFG. Headquartered in the Netherlands, it operates in more than 60 countries and has more than 180,000 customers and 2,000-plus employees worldwide, including about 450 across North America. The company has offices in both and Montreal and Cambridge, Ont.

e-Synergy

Exact took a different approach than many of its competitors with the release of e-Synergy a couple of years ago. This Web-based product runs on Microsoft Internet Explorer and includes customer relationship management, e-commerce and portals, as well as project, human resource, workflow, event and document/ knowledge management. These are often called front-office applications, while financials, distribution and production are considered back office. What makes e-Synergy so interesting is that it is a powerful CRM system in its own right, and is tightly integrated with Exact's back-office systems. Since the front and back offices share one database (Microsoft SQL Server), you have no integration issues and all of your information is kept up to the second in real time.

When prospects respond to an e-mail and enter their personal information, the system automatically updates the contact database. You can check for duplicates and add or merge the information. A workflow request is sent to the appropriate people for follow-up. When a customer places an order, the pricing used in the back-office system also appears on the website. The system offers a centralized view of all customers and their activities (workflow, financial transactions, support issues) from anywhere, anytime. Customers, suppliers and partners can also manage their accounts through secure portals. With about 300 customers in North America, e-Synergy is starting to make a name for itself here. North American sales for the product nearly doubled in 2004, the second year on the market. That growth is likely to continue, since Exact has a good story to tell and is investing marketing dollars in both Canada and the US.

Target market

Exact is targeted to small and medium-sized businesses with from $10 million to $50 million in revenue, as well as manufacturing and distribution companies and divisions of multinationals — a great potential market. Parent companies likely use one of the Tier One products such as SAP, PeopleSoft or Oracle. But these systems are often too much for the various divisions. Globe was built to integrate with other systems using eXtended markup language (XML), which has become the standard for integration.

Cost

The Globe product, including e-Synergy, general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, distribution, order processing, inventory control and purchasing costs $25,000 plus $1,500 per named user (i.e., any employee who would access the system). Production costs another $25,000. You could also buy e-Synergy as a standalone system for $10,000, plus $1,500 per named user.

Analysis

Assets	Liabilities
Unified database. e-Synergy shares the same database as its back-office systems.	e-Synergy does not share the same user interface as the back-office systems. There are also different levels of integration with the various back-office systems, with the Globe product having the tightest integration.
Web-based. You can access the e-Synergy system over the Internet, or over your intranet with Microsoft Internet Explorer.	At present, only e-Synergy is Web-based.
Costs. Exact will offer a competitive price, and there is no charge for your customers, suppliers or business partners to access e-Synergy.	Exact charges use of the system on a named- user basis rather than a concurrent-user basis. This means you pay a licence fee for every user, no matter how much time they are on the system.
Canadian content. e-Synergy and Globe Enterprise are both available in several languages, including French.	Canadian payroll is not available now, but is scheduled for the end of 2005.
Work flow. Work flow is built right into e-Synergy and includes rules for routing transactions. Alerts are also available with Exact Event Manager.
Business intelligence. e-Synergy comes with pivot tables for analysis of multiple dimensions from sales, customer service, marketing, etc.	The pivot tables are not built using online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes. OLAP has become the industry standard for slicing and dicing across multiple dimensions.
Projects. e-Synergy includes tools for managing projects, tracking time and approving expenses.	There is no weekly view to enter time across multiple clients and projects. However, a professional services automation (PSA) template can be purchased as an add-on. It includes a weekly timesheet. Expenses are not integrated with accounts payable.
Outlook integration. e-Synergy will synchronize calendars and contacts. You can also have e-mails sent to contacts attached to the e-Synergy contact database.
Document management. Document management includes version control, security for levels of access, mail merge, etc.

Bottom line

The e-Synergy product does not make a lot of sense as a standalone solution unless your organization is focused on services and has no need for an ERP system. For manufacturers and distributors, the biggest advantage lies in the sharing of one database with the back-office system. But if you are looking for a tightly integrated back office or are currently using one of Exact's ERP systems, e-Synergy just might be your ticket.