Interprise Brings Flexible ERP, CRM To E-commerce

Company: Interprise Solutions

Headquarters: North Mankato, Minn.

Technology Sector: Software

Key Product: Interprise Suite

Year Founded: 2004

Number of Channel Partners: 110 worldwide; 75 in the U.S.

Ideal Channel Partner: Small business-focused solution providers

Why You Should Care: Interprise Solutions' adherence to service-oriented architecture gives e-commerce firms a flexible and customizable platform that offers a broad view of customer relationships.

The Lowdown: Interprise Solutions is gaining favor with e-commerce companies on the strength of its flexible and customizable offering that spans the worlds of CRM and ERP, giving firms a broad view of what's happening within their customer bases.

Interprise was founded in 2004 by a group of enterprise software developers in Makati City, Philippines, and is now headquartered in North Mankato, Minn. The company's flagship Interprise Suite is based on Microsoft's .NET Framework with a SQL Server backend and makes integration with e-commerce systems a pain-free endeavor, according to Michael Anderson, vice president of business development for Interprise Solutions.

Interprise Suite

Interprise Suite is based on service-oriented architecture, which allows the client-side application to run locally on the customer's PC, over a LAN or over the Internet using Web services. "This makes it ideal for companies with distributed workforces because it removes the limitation of having to be on the physical network," Anderson said.

The suite includes more than 2,700 reusable plug-ins that developers can extend within Visual Studio or replace entirely with their own customized plug-ins. This modular design greatly simplifies the development effort and brings a level of flexibility to the offering that Anderson describes as a key selling point.

"Interprise Suite gives you a unique 360-degree view of your customer, including pre-sales, marketing campaigns, support cases, and also traditional ERP data. What really differentiates us is when customers need to have solid view of their customers across the board, both before and after the sale," said Anderson.

Interprise Suite's flexibility has led to the formation of an ecosystem of developer partners who've added functionality for tasks such as payroll integration, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or even extensions enabling customers to sell their inventory on Amazon or Ebay, Anderson said.

Interprise works with traditional VARs on SMB-focused deals, but also has its own professional services group that handles enterprise-level customers that prefer to deal with vendors directly. "However, even in these scenarios, if we have partners that are local and can provide hands-on support and training, we do what we can to involve them in the opportunity," Anderson said.

While Interprise doesn't focus on specific verticals, the majority of its customers are companies that sell their wares through multiple channels, and they purchase Interprise's shopping cart application in 70 percent of all deals involving Interprise Suite, Anderson added.

Competition for dollars in the mature ERP and CRM markets is fierce, and Anderson acknowledged that Interprise sometimes runs up against Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains in ERP-related deals. That's not a problem, though, since Interprise is able to quote deals at one-third to one-half as much as its competitors, Anderson said.