Midsize manufacturers or existing SAP customers with a need for worldwide supply chain business-to-business (B2B) integration and collaboration and for a divisional or plant-level ERP system should take a look at Fourth Shift Edition for SAP Business One.
For repetitive, batch process, make-to-order (MTO), discrete, and mixed-mode manufacturing enterprises at the lower end of the mid-market, which have limited information technology (IT) budgets and conservative IT strategy, as well as significant manufacturing, customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain, and collaborative B2B e-commerce requirements, we generally recommend including the original Fourth Shift in a long list for an enterprise application selection. Although it addresses the market horizontally, the product has a high proportion of its customers in the automotive, electronics, computers, machinery, fabricated products, consumer products, batch process, and medical devices industries, where traceability and engineering change management (ECM) are key requirements.
Meanwhile, evolution is more suitable for the upper-end of the same market, serving enterprises requiring three-dimensional (3D) or attribute-based bills of materials (BOM), such as textiles, food, paper, mining, and pharmaceuticals companies in MTO, contract-based and configure-to-order (CTO) manufacturing environments.
As DemandStream is targeted at flexible lean manufacturers; can handle mixed-mode operations, electronic kanbans, and just in time (JIT) at the plant level; and can agnostically interface to most ERP systems, non-SoftBrands users may benefit from evaluating it on a stand-alone basis. The product might be of particular interest to enterprises experiencing demand fluctuation, product customization and combination, frequent engineering changes, numerous resource bottlenecks, long lead times, and supply chain complexity, but which are still keen on deploying lean manufacturing principles.
Nonetheless, due to relatively recent restructuring and a fledgling channel, potential clients should conduct thorough research on available resources and reference sites of a regional SoftBrands office or an affiliate service provider. Existing users of earlier product releases that face stabilization (e.g., Micro Data Base Systems [mbds]-based products) should react positively to the company's strategic activities (as outlined above), as they may benefit from querying the company's future product migration path, service and support, or scalability strategy, and as they may be able to negotiate favorable maintenance reinstatement contracts.
PORTfolio is a comprehensive client/server hotel system that offers a wide range of functions for both front- and back-office operations in single-site and multi-property hotels and resorts. With PORTfolio's centralized management system, hotel chains can take advantage of a central reservation system (CRS), as well as centralized guest and company history, data warehousing, and a sales ledger. The product also has many customizable features, allowing hotel staff to keep operations flowing from one shift to the next. Using these features, staff can track reservations, client history, room availability, rate levels, and day-to-day communications with graphically rich screens and relatively easy-to-read menus.
Other key features of PORTfolio include a diary, end-of-day processing, housekeeping, maintenance, accounts receivable (AR), and full management reporting. There are currently approximately 250 installations of PORTfolio. These are primarily in the UK, though about thirty are in the US. This is because PORTfolio is a small enterprise solution particularly suited to the characteristics of the hotel market in the UK. In North American markets, the product is also sold to timeshare properties that are using Resorts Solutions CRS software.
RIO
SoftBrands' guest-centric LMS, RIO, supports the activities of spas, health clubs, and resorts. RIO is an integrated system that is particularly suitable for high-end accommodation resorts and spas. The system has seven software modules that are designed to operate either independently as stand-alone applications, or collectively in any combination to provide an integrated solution, which shares a client history database.
The heart of the system is the Client Profile Manager, which allows a resort or spa to capture all aspects of client preferences and activities. RIO can tie together all areas of a resort property, including the spa, restaurant, gift shop, classes, special events, golf, tennis, and fitness center, through specific modules such as RIO Spa, RIO Retail, and RIO Dining. SoftBrands has offered the RIO product for over three years, and there are currently approximately 250 installations of RIO worldwide.
Legacy Software Systems:
Besides revenue from the aforementioned solutions, a large portion of hospitality revenue is derived from maintenance of legacy software systems, primarily IGS Hotel and LANmark, which SoftBrands pledges to continue to support. IGS Hotel operates in a multitasking Microsoft Disk Operating System (DOS) environment and offers a wide range of functions for both the front- and back-office operations in a hotel. LANmark is a property management product, which operates in multitasking DOS environments and offers many of the same features as IGS Hotel.
Hospitality Operations
SoftBrands' principal offices for its hospitality operations are shown in table 1 below. The vendor also has sales offices in Beijing, China; Dublin, Ireland; and Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, as well as distributors worldwide.
Table 1. Principal Offices of SoftBrands Hospitality
| Location | Functions |
| Wichita, Kansas (US) | Headquarters for the Americas Marketing, sales, product development, quality assurance, and customer support |
| Bangalore, India | Development, quality assurance, and customer support |
| Reading, UK | Headquarters for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Marketing, sales, and customer support |
| Brussels, Belgium | Marketing, sales, and customer support |
| Sydney, Australia | Marketing, sales, and customer support |
SoftBrands currently provides customer support for hospitality customers on a geographic basis from locations in the US, the UK, Belgium, and Australia. The company is developing a worldwide customer support center in Bangalore, India, through which it will provide first-line customer support for hospitality clients on an around-the-clock basis, beginning any day now (if indeed it has not already started).
SoftBrands distributes its hospitality products primarily through a worldwide direct sales organization, though it does have some reseller and distributor relationships. The vendor currently employs about a dozen direct sales personnel in its hospitality operations worldwide, and has contracts with approximately nine resellers.
A direct sales force conducts all the sales in the US, while the vendor uses resellers in Canada and Mexico. In the Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) markets, it has a direct sales force, which accounts for 70 percent of product sales, as well as channel partners in Spain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Dubai (UAE), and Russia. In Asia Pacific, the company also uses a mix of direct sales force and channel partners.
Research and development (R&D) for hospitality products occurs both in-house and through an agreement with RekSoft, a St. Petersburg, Russia-based company with whom SoftBrands has a multi-year development contract. RekSoft currently provides continued core development for Medallion. Indeed, the focus of SoftBrands' current development efforts is primarily on increasing the functionality of Medallion.
The vendor has also made a long-term commitment to software development and coding in India, with the creation of a worldwide development center in Bangalore, India. Approximately twelve hospitality development staff are located in Bangalore, India. This development effort focuses on the PORTfolio and RIO products.
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