Baan New Zealand has opted out of selling the Caps Logistics transport and route planning optimisation product recently acquired by its parent company, leaving the job to supply chain specialist Motherwell Information Systems.
Baan NZ manager Mike Murphy said Caps did not fit his company's business model which focuseson CRM (customer relationship management), e-commerce and ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions. "Caps is a whole new area, it's a full logistics and supply chain product which is a different market space to ERP and CRM."
Mr Murphy said the management buy-out which resulted in the creation of a separate company to distribute Baan in this country was modelled on what Sun Microsystems distributor SolNet had achieved.
"We are the authorised agent in New Zealand. We see it as a way of moving forward. This country is not big enough for the US business model, which says 'here's the licence, go out and get the hardware and the services.' New Zealand customers want one responsible party to deal with."
Motherwell Asia Pacific chief executive officer John Quirk said Caps could make a huge difference to people's businesses in the areas of transportation planning and logistics. He said Motherwell would mainly aim it at Australian customers.
"Transportation issues are bigger in Australia so it makes a bigger difference," he said.
Motherwell has built up a strong supply chain practice, and also sells the Numetrix supply chain optimisation tool now owned by JD Edwards.
Caps Logistics is used by more than a quarter of Fortune 100 companies and is credited with saving users between 8 per cent and 30 per cent of total transportation costs.
