PeopleSoft apps to say "da"
Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 8/1/2004 6:00:00 AM
Sensing a market ripe for modernization, PeopleSoft has opened offices in Moscow, Warsaw, and Prague; and plans to launch a Russian version of its EnterpriseOne application in the third quarter. While already translated into Polish, currently there are no plans for additional translations.
Jeffrey Read, PeopleSoft's managing director and VP of the channels and distribution group, says the enterprise systems vendor plans to recruit as many as 20 new industry-aligned channel partners in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Confederation of Independent States (i.e., countries such as Ukraine, formerly part of the Soviet Union) by the end of 2004.
PeopleSoft could use a boost in its offshore sales. Its license renewal revenues are weak in Europe, where it garners about 46 percent of sales, according to a second-quarter report from Equity Analyst Adam Holt of J.P. Morgan.
Regarding the new offices, says Read, "What's been missing from the market is a solution for medium- to medium-large companies—particularly those in asset-intensive industries." What's driving the new opportunity, he adds, "is the number of local companies seeking to modernize their operations in response to both competition and inward investment from the rest of Europe."
The Warsaw office also hosts an advanced applications center supporting PeopleSoft customers in all of the new markets. The decision to go after the markets was made, in part, says Read, because of a "critical mass" of companies in Eastern Europe and Russia using J.D. Edwards' software—the ERP company acquired by PeopleSoft last year.
Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, as the site for many manufacturing operations outsourced from Western Europe, have the attention of ERP and IT vendors. The Bucharest newspaper Ziarul Financiar quoted Michael Lodato, a VP at QAD, as saying the company wants as much as 10 percent of the Romanian ERP market. In 2003, QAD posted $900,000 in sales in Romania, but doesn't intend to open an office there, the newspaper reports. QAD's market partner there has Dacia, Kraft Foods, and Philips as clients.
Competitors chide PeopleSoft for its late entry. "Today Oracle, SAP, and some other players have adjusted their products to the needs of Polish customers, so in my opinion it is already too late to enter the market," says Pawel Piwowar, president of Oracle in Poland, quoted in the Polish News Bulletin. SAP has been in Russia for more than a decade.
Read retorts that "for PeopleSoft, the time is right."
