ERP pioneer sells his stake

By ADAM GIFFORD

Glenn Tubb, the Denver native who brought JD Edwards' ERP (enterprise resource planning) software to New Zealand in 1985, has returned home wealthy after selling his Australasian distributorship to the parent company for an undisclosed price.

Mr Tubb owned about 40 per cent of JD Edwards New Zealand, while United States-based JD Edwards had 10 per cent. The rest was owned by the original New Zealand directors, John Hamer, Graeme Coomer and Roger Harvey, and three managers brought in at the time Mr Tubb also took over the Australian operation, Richard Mathews, Mike Welsh and Glenn Wright.

Mr Tubb has taken up a new role as JD Edwards' vice-president of supply chain planning and execution.

Mr Mathews, the new managing director of JD Edwards Australia/New Zealand, says the deal gives the business access to greater capital and a firmer footing in the market.

He says many of the larger customers want to deal with JD Edwards direct, "and some competitors were able to use our business partner status as a point against us. The acquisition removes this argument and takes the competition back to performance-based evaluation."

"The big change is in terms of capital. We're growing the business quickly and with bigger clients, but with a small group of shareholders it's harder to put the millions into the infrastructure needed."

The company has 80 staff in New Zealand and almost 200 in Australia, where more are being sought.

The offices will be connected to JD Edwards' worldwide WAN (wide area network) with direct access to the company intranet, and the company is also building an advanced technology lab in Sydney where customers can test different combinations of hardware, software and third-party products before attempting to implement on their own sites.

Mr Mathews says JD Edwards recently passed Peoplesoft as the third-largest ERP application vendor in Australia behind SAP and Oracle.

Turnover on both sides of the Tasman last year was about $70 million, $22 million in New Zealand.

"Worldwide we are number three. In New Zealand, if you look at new licences and customers, we see ourselves at number one."

He says Fisher and Paykel has gone live with the new One World product, and Trade New Zealand, Blue Star and Ngai Tahu are due to go live soon.

JD Edwards developed One World as an open alternative to its original system, which ran only on IBM AS/400 servers, making it one of the few companies to successfully make the transition from the AS/400 platform.

Mr Mathews says Mr Tubb stepped back from the day-to-day running of the Australasian business last year to do some strategic thinking and "understand where the market is going - he's good at that kind of stuff."

This led to a sharper focus on supply chain, helped by JD Edwards' acquisition of the Numetrix optimisation tool. In this part of the world, Numetrix is handled by Motherwell Information Systems, which was recently bought by management and European venture capital firm 3i.

Mr Mathews, aged 35, joined the company as New Zealand general manager in 1995 after working as a consultant for Deloitte and in senior management positions at Cadbury Confectionery. In 1998 he became director of operations for New Zealand and Australia.

David Batkin remains the director of the New Zealand business unit.