Epicor Scala to capitalize on growing demand from mid-sized firms in MENA for business analysis, planning & Business Intelligence solutions

Commenting on the launch, Mr Ziad Aqrabawi, regional director of Epicor Scala in the Middle East said, "Traditionally, the first generation of deployments of business analysis solution focused on business 'power users', trying to meet the need to disseminate information to all types of business users in the enterprise.
However, we are now seeing a distinct change; a trend is emerging, where companies are increasingly opting for CPM systems to exploit their corporate data to get useful business information for analysis & planning.

Adding he said, "Better BI tools, more experienced people and lower deployment costs, small and medium sized companies will begin to seriously evaluate such solutions. With the launch of our Active Planner and through our vast global experience in the mid-segment space, we are very favourably placed to capitalize on the same".

Based on Microsoft technologies, the tool is aimed at providing companies a strategic planning solution with the flexibility to react quickly to change in today's highly dynamic and competitive business environment. Active Planner also helps manage the complexity of organization-wide budget development, thus enabling managers to spend more time on analyzing trends and improving performance.

"Epicor's Active Planner is a very powerful BI tool that is designed to link the planning activities of an organization with its performance," said Mr. Ziad Aqrabawi, regional director of Epicor Scala in the Middle East. "The tool can be accessed seamlessly via the Internet by a Web browser. Simultaneously, tight mapping to Epicor's back office solutions enable instant mapping of data and elimination of redundant data entry. To further add to our customers' convenience and cut down on time costs, this tool offers advanced multiple database compatibility features that are unique in the midmarket segment."

Using Active Planner, managers benefit from integrated budget plan sheets, powerful calculations and seamless data integration tools, powerful analytical tools, automated distributed budget management, pro-forma financial statements and analysis and powerful insight with OLAP analysis.

Key highlights of the Active Planner include, plan manager, integrated budget plan sheets, enterprise data access, formulas, spreading techniques, plan sheet links, analytical capabilities, support for best practices and business intelligence. Active Planner enables a manager to not just enhance efficiency in performing routine financial management tasks, but also affords additional time that may be dedicated to better planning and forecasting for the company.

Epicor iScala® is a globally available enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, fully supported by the standard Signature implementation methodology. A set of migration tools is available for existing Epicor Scala customers who wish to migrate or upgrade to the latest release.