Benefits of extend On-Demand (SaaS Model) for Equipment Dealers and Rental Firms

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1 extend On-Demand WHITEPAPER Benefits of extend On-Demand (SaaS Model) for Equipment Dealers and Rental Firms A Journey to Competitive Advantage and Business Excellence Abstract Competitive Advantage through process improvements is a key to success. It is vital for dealer organizations to adapt to ever changing business scenarios, excel in customer service, efficiently handle resources, and keep pace with the industry and the technology, while lowering the expense ratio. The Business Excellence journey involves identification of industry-specific technology solutions that helps differentiating you from competition while optimizing above mentioned performance indicators. This white paper explores the business benefits in moving to extend on-demand, and running, managing, and improving your business process efficiencies via Softwareas-a-Service.

2 Bridging the Gap between Business and Technology Information Technology (IT) has become a strategic element in business. The speed and quality of decision making, the agility in responding to changing business conditions and the accuracy and timeliness in meeting customer needs, are largely determined by the quality and availability of information throughout the organization. Gaps between business objectives and results are for a large part attributable to lack of information, delay of information, incomplete information or inaccurate information. Business systems capture transactions and data and integrate those into meaningful information, available across branches, department, disciplines and people. The level of benefit dealers accrue from their business system depends on a number of solution characteristics, including: Solution completeness and fit or degree to which the system reflects the full breadth and specific nature of equipment dealer business practices; Level of enabled end user empowerment and productivity with tailored and role based information and screens; Ongoing flexibility to adapt to continuous business change and innovation; Technical versatility to adopt, leverage and evolve based on the latest technology innovations; Cost-effective, quickly implemented and low risk deployment model. Equipment dealers operate in a highly competitive environment. With tighter economic conditions business agility, efficiency and future-readiness are key business capabilities for ongoing growth and profitability. With the right information system, dealers will be able to solidify their market position for the short and long term.. extend ERP for Dealers has been designed with above criteria in mind and leverages a strong Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technology foundation. Its modern ERP foundation provides the benefits of continuous innovation by large technology OEMs such as Infor and Microsoft, broad and deep functionality, flexibility, and cost effective deployment. extend provides a comprehensive set of embedded Industry Best Practices for Dealers. With a modern and rolebased user interface, powerful search and personalization capabilities, a complete and integrated information repository, extend dramatically improves dealer end user effectiveness and productivity.

3 Inhibited Innovation The traditional approach of buying software licenses and deploying them on site has become a financial and operational burden for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) including dealer organizations. For some dealers this burden has become a prohibitive factor in benefiting from modern business system capabilities. The risk, business impact and expense prevent these companies from making a move and upgrade to a new business system. This will inevitably take its toll on efficiency, productivity, competitive standing and future profitability. extend On-Demand: Business Innovation for Dealers extend ERP is now available as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). extend On-Demand takes away the prohibitive factors dealers face today, and enables a new wave of innovation for equipment dealers. It removes the high cost, risk and business disruption, associated with the old approaches. extend On- Demand lowers IT expenses and streamlines business processes. extend On-Demand is the enabler for dealers to simplify business, and get Lean and Agile on the business and IT front. Why SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model? Historically, business software has been installed on a computer at dealer location; commonly called onpremise deployment. Stable communications costs, improved reliability and better availability engender greater flexibility in the delivery of business systems across the organization. These improvements in network technology and bandwidth have made the on-demand model a viable and even preferred alternative. For small and medium businesses, such as equipment dealers, on-demand or SaaS offers a simpler and less expensive means to get enterprise-class functionality. Dealers can connect via the Internet, get the benefit of the software without the burden of supporting it, and easily scale it up or down as needed. With fast user access over the Internet, in a highly secure and reliable environment, available around the clock (24x7) and professionally managed, on-demand brings greater flexibility at lower cost. Consequently, many executives have turned the corner and become comfortable with the idea of having their business system and data reside outside the physical walls of their company. In a recent survey, IDC found that 79% of companies are now purchasing and/or reviewing software-as-a-service offerings (source: IDC, 2007).

4 extend On-Demand: In 3 Steps to Dealer Excellence extend On-Demand offers a number of pronounced benefits for dealers. The entire business model behind extend On-Demand has been optimized to make dealers benefit throughout the life cycle of their business system. Below figure summarizes the 3-step path to Dealership Excellence. Step 1: Get On Demand Zero hardware, database and middleware investment Zero business software license investment Rapid implementation methodology No hardware, database and middleware configuration Packaged best practices and process models specific to dealers and ready for roll-out Proven data migration tools to convert data from NDS, PFW and other traditional systems Canned master data including predefined Chart of Account structure and configured integration between Business and Finance applications Limited training requirement

5 Step 2. Get Lean and Agile Continuous improvement through adoption of packaged industry best practices Automate OEM transactions through extend OEM Collaborations Leverage extended applications such as Business Intelligence, Field Service, and Service Scheduler Intuitive end user capability through single-click navigation, easy search and fast data entry Enterprise-level data center infrastructure and system management for high availability (24x7), security and reliability (SAS-70 certified) Step 3. Get Ahead of the Pack Silent application upgrades at no additional cost Adopt the latest and ongoing innovations Focus company investment and staff on core business and improvement programs extend On-Demand: How does it work? On-Demand Delivery Model for extend Applications: Customer subscribes to extend Applications with a per user per year fee; extend On-Demand delivers Software, Software Maintenance and Management, Systems Infrastructure, and Systems Infrastructure management; Customer is responsible for no capital infrastructure to support On-Demand delivery of extend Applications; Customer does not pay one time perpetual software license cost or separate annual software maintenance. Faster Time to Benefit for the Customer with extend Applications: On-Demand delivery model is pre-built by e-emphasys and hosting partners, enabling faster realization of business benefit; Customer can grow or shrink with extend On-Demand easily by contacting e-emphasys to provision additional application users; extend Application implementation services are tailored to On-Demand delivery with standardized implementation templates and business processes. Reduced risk during the customer s extend Application lifecycle: Risk associated with infrastructure provisioning, support, and management are removed; Financial risks associated with extend Application cost overruns are mitigated with the predictable cost structure over the life of the extend On-Demand contract; Application management headcount turnover risks are mitigated as extend assumes all management functions for the extend Application environment; extend Application version control risks are mitigated as e-emphasys takes responsibility for application version updates and patches.

6 Your Journey to Competitive Advantage and Business Excellence begins with extend On-Demand extend On-Demand is the SaaS delivery model of extend, the world s leading ERP for equipment dealers and rental firms. With extend On-Demand, dealers invest in their business and not the software. The Value of extend On-Demand: Reduce Risk - extend provides infrastructure, operations, integration, and application management support alternatives, along with an industry leading Service Level Agreement (SLA) Achieve Fast Return On Investment - Customers deploying extend On-Demand are up and running quickly through pre-defined application and environment setups and common business practices. Leverage Proven Experience e-emphasys Technologies, Inc. and its hosting partners have extensive On-Demand experience to ensure organizations systems are secure, available, and scalable to meet all the changing needs of their business For more information on extend, please visit:

7 e-emphasys Technologies, Inc. is a global provider of enterprise solutions serving customers worldwide, ranging from 25 2,000 users. Strategic focus at e-emphasys is extend: the World's leading ERP for Equipment Dealers and Rental Firms.