Monzer Tohme, Regional Vice President, Epicor Software Middle East, speaks to InBusiness.ae about the company’s participation at GITEX and their latest solutions for the region. 

What are the solutions that you showcased at GITEX this year?

GITEX is always key for us and we ensure to be there every single year. This year, we have expanded our presence with a bigger booth and through our channel partners.

Being the biggest IT show in the region, GITEX is a significant platform for us to discover potential opportunities, meet with budding customers and introduce new versions of our software or new solutions.

This GITEX, we introduced the latest releases from our key product lines, the Epicor 10. 2, our flagship ERP product. It has just been released in the U.S. and we’re doing a parallel announcement in the region. We also launched the iScala for hospitality, one of our peak solutions worldwide that focuses on the hotel business. We haven’t been excessively focused on this area before, however, during GITEX we announced the new release of the product as well as the new hospitality related initiatives that we are working on.

What are the solutions that you are offering to the manufacturing industry in particular?

We are extending our portfolio from the standard business application or ERP to something called the MES (Manufacturing Execution System), which embeds within it combinations of IoT, connectivity, robotics and artificial intelligence.

We are introducing the solution that complements our offering to the manufacturing sector in this region. MES expands our offering to the shop floor, it connects machines to smart devices that provide real-time data and information back to the ERP and to the decision makers.

What is the competitive advantage that Epicor has in this region?

Today, our added value proposition is that we build industry-focused-solutions. We don’t have a product nor an ERP that fits everybody. We are focused on specific industries and we build functionality within our application that fits these industries. We are powerful in the manufacturing space and focused on specific verticals within the industry. For example, when we talk about machinery, Engineering to Order or a project-oriented manufacturing, we build specific functionalities that help customers in these verticals get the highest value out of their ERP and out of their investment in ERP. That’s our value proposition. Other vendors have a different approach around their proposition when it comes to ERP.

How is your partnership with SmartWorld helping businesses in Dubai South modernize their operations?

We leverage the key initiatives that happen in Dubai, and SmartWorld along with Dubai South was one of them. We have been engaged with them, and we leverage their huge customer base which is into manufacturing and logistics and we provide them with a platform to utilize our solution that fits that specific industry. This is where Dubai South has seen an added value in partnering with Epicor because we have a sort of synergy with their vision.

What is the next step in this partnership?

We are working on setting up our solution within the data centre of SmartWorld that will allow customers to have access to a cloud ERP based out of Dubai. Today, the majority of customers have concerns about connecting with a remote site outside the region, and this is part of the initiative that we are currently discussing and planning to implement.