Preactor International announces the successful launch of Preactor Europe

In response to the rapid increase in its business over the past two years, independent global supplier of production planning and scheduling solutions, Preactor International, is locating its recently formed subsidiary company Preactor Europe in Lyon, France. This adds to the successful subsidiary companies already established in the USA and in Asia.

Mike Novels, President of Preactor International commented on the strategic significance of this. We have long recognised the value our solutions can bring to companies throughout Europe and the creation of Preactor Europe is central to our strategic expansion in Europe. Preactor Europe will have the role of improving our sales and of expanding the network of alliances in mainland Europe and the Middle East.

Preactor chose France (Lyon) for its European subsidiary for a variety of reasons:

         France has the 3rd largest installed base of Preactor users after the UK and United States, and as such, is the most important developing market in continental Europe

         Preactor achieved more than 20% growth in Continental Europe in 2007 and almost 25% in France. This reflects the constant development of this market by Preactor for several years

         In France, Preactor has almost 200 sites installed. The analysts have indicated that the market has matured well which is important and we expect that our customers will be even more numerous in the years to come, commented Mike Novels

         France has a central location from which to access the major European and Middle East countries 

Thierry Faguet has been appointed Operations Manager for Preactor Europe. Thierry was previously Director of the Planning and Scheduling department at SEGULA, Preactors historical partner in France and a company well known for its competence, professionalism, and its knowledge of the market. Thierry is the leader of our presence in the French market, explains Novels, and he will be central to our success here as his expertise and knowledge will be beneficial to all our partners. In addition, the development of Preactor Europe will be assisted by a strong strategy drawing on expert marketing resources within Preactor International. This will be developed and led by Valerie Goulevitch, Director Marketing EMEA.

As the key people at the development of Preactor Europe and our growing European presence are French, we felt we had no choice than base our subsidiary here! joked Novels. 

PREACTOR EUROPE: Already a partnership force to be reckoned with

Although Preactor Europe has been in existence for only 6 months, it has already forged a significant number of strategic alliances with other leading companies. In addition to our existing partnerships with SEGULA and AXSOLU, well known companies in their field, we have formalized agreements with a growing number of authors and integrators of solutions wishing to enrich their products with a specialised solution at an international level remarked Novels.

Among the French-speaking countries, agreements have been made with:

         ISARTIS - recognized Expert in SAP solutions

         IFS - international ERP Solution for SMEs and international large accounts

         QAD for companies in the automotive, industrial, consumer goods, food & beverage, electronic & medical sectors

         Groupe KARDOL specialist integrators of Sage X3 in a variety of different verticals

         GFI Infogen integrator of Sage X3 and Microsoft Dynamics AX for SMEs

         VIF - ERP well known in the Food & Beverage sector

         DIVALTO specialist provider of ERP solutions for the retail, industrial & service industries with 1-500 personnel

         INFODEV - solution ERP specialized in industries of the discrete manufacturing for SMEs

         NSI leading systems integrator in Belgium and Luxembourg

         DYNASYS, AZAP, major solutions provider for Demand Planning & Forecasting

         OSYS and APRISO, solutions well known in the field of MES, international players who have also chosen the technology of Preactor to complement their solutions.

Christophe Collignon Managing Partner and Founder of ISARTIS commented on the partnership with Preactor. We recognised a strategic partnership with Preactor would allow us to offer our customers a complete solution integrating the best practices of SAP and Preactor. This partnership has already borne fruit. Our customers and prospective customers appreciate the ability to be able to benefit from the proven solutions of SAP, coupled to the advanced planning and scheduling capability of Preactor recognized as the best around the world. We have completely integrated Preactor into SAP so giving better optimization and communication between the two systems.

Guy Timmermans, ERP Sales Manager of the NSI Group, a leader in the integration of data-processing solutions in Belgium and Luxembourg, stated.  We recommend Preactor as the solution for planning and scheduling to complement the ERP systems we offer (Microsoft Dynamics AX (Axapta), Dynamics NAV (Navision), and BAAN as well as COSWIN, a GMAO solution (maintenance). We are very satisfied with the partnership engaged between our two companies, and to date have several customers in the course of deployment in various branches of industry.

Patrick Bourgeois, Sales and Marketing Director of Dynasys, a leading author of Supply Chain Planning solutions (strategic planning and forecasts of sales) commented. The complementary nature of our solutions is obvious. We signed an agreement with Preactor based on confidence and collaboration. This partnership is encouraging since we have recently signed our first customers together and we fully expect other contracts to be signed in the coming weeks and months.

Fabrice Chausserais, Business Unit Director of Osys remarked, We work in the field of manufacturing and our customers increasingly ask us for planning and scheduling solutions that complement of our products. There are very few companies is this specialised market so for us, the installed base of Preactor (10 times larger than most of its competitors) and its international presence (in nearly 70 countries), were determining factors.

Preactors global reach and presence are central to success for Novels. We have the advantage of a wide distribution network established over many years and built on a huge amount of experience. We have more than 400 partners and distributors around the world which represents more than 1000 people certified for the distribution and the implementation of our product. 

This is complemented by a comprehensive range of scalable solutions to meet the needs of industries of all sizes and sectors as Faguet explains. Our solutions are extremely powerful in terms of planning and scheduling and we can offer our partners packaged solutions that tightly integrate into their own products. This offers them an undeniable competitive advantage in their markets. But beyond the products, it is with the people we work with, and the relationship we have with them that are central to the way we work. We always try to provide our partners with the broadest range of solutions and support in order to complete a project and we are working on more agreements on an ongoing basis.
 

PREACTOR EUROPE: Already winning business across many countries

In addition to its flourishing alliance success, Preactor Europe has been winning a wide range of business wins across different industry sectors in many countries. This reflects the success Preactor has had at an international level where the company recorded an average of one new customer per day in 2007. As Faguet explains, In France, we also feel the keen interest and the passion of many companies for simple but powerful solutions that enable their existing ERP investment and bring a quick Return On Investment.

Over the last weeks, Preactor Europe recorded several new customers including:

         TECHNIP Global leader in engineering, technology and project development for the petroleum and gas industries, has confirmed the deployment of PREACTOR at an international level (France , Brazil, UK, US, Malaysia, Angola).

         EUROCOPTER The worlds leading helicopter manufacturer is currently implementing PREACTOR for its assembly lines on the Dolphin helicopter. Integrated into SAP, the solution will then be deployed into other areas within the group.

         UNITHER a manufacturer of pharmaceutical products (unidoses, tablets effervescent, and of unisticks) selected Preactor for the planning of its manufacturing units to complement its JD Edwards ERP system

         BIC TECHNOLOGIES - selected Preactor in conjunction with Sages X3
 

Other business wins are in the process of being finalised.

Commenting on these wins, Faguet says, The open architecture of our solutions, unique in the market, and the power of our scheduling engines enable us to take into account the constraints of any plant and any type of industry. He continues, This means we can work just as effectively with SMEs and multinational companies with facilities dispersed across many countries.

Our strategy also extends to other European countries, adds Mike Novels. In Italy for example we have increased from 4 to nearly 15 solutions integrators and our sales have multiplied proportionally. In 2009 we will extend our activities in other countries and we have not excluded the possibility of opening other offices if required to support our efforts and to reinforce our positioning. He concludes, We are committed to remain independent while so many of our competitors are being acquired!

About Preactor International.

Preactor International is a world leader in production planning and scheduling software used by a wide range of businesses.  Frequently integrated with ERP, MES and Supply Chain Management solutions, Preactors breakthrough technology is used by more than 2,300 small, medium and large multinational companies located in 65 countries.

Preactor has established partnerships with more than 400 companies located around the world to provide local expertise to support the implementation of the solution for each company.  These 1000+ accredited professionals offer a key resource working closely with users to ensure each companys unique requirements are met.

The current trends in manufacturing are towards lowering inventory levels to reduce costs yet still be able to respond to shorter lead times to satisfy customer demand.  Preactor offers a family of applications ranging from mid and long term capacity planning to detailed scheduling and is translated into 30 languages.

Preactor runs on industry standard hardware, operating systems and databases.  Preactor International has long been a Microsoft Gold Partner and certifies its products for use on Microsoft platforms and databases.  It uses the latest technology to develop its applications and typically offers at least one major release each year.

With 15 years of expertise in production planning and scheduling technology, 2,300 companies as users, more than 10,000 licenses installed and an extensive partner network offering local expertise and support, Preactor International offers global companies with a proven solution and the global resources for the execution of multinational projects.