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Total Software Management System

QAD Poland - Customer Success Story

Major Manufacturing SoftwareVendor Uses Roundtable to Attractand Support Large Customers

QAD PolandQAD Polska Sp. z.o.oUl.Jozefa Pi sudskiego 13Tel: + 48 71 78 20 250Kamil Skudlarskiwww.qad.com

QAD Poland Gains theRoundtable EdgeQAD Poland, a subsidiary of QAD, Inc.established in 1996, uses theRoundtable TSMS, softwareconfiguration management tool forProgress-based systems, to efficientlytrack and manage customizations formore than 70 European customers.Many of these customers havemultiple sites spanning numerouscountries, not to mention multipledatabases requiring complex supportneeds.

QAD Poland receives QAD’s baseproduct, MFG/PRO, from USheadquarters, makes the necessarymodifications for the Europeanmarket, then performs additionalcustomizations for each customer.The 75-employee company isfrequently asked to makecustomizations on a site-by-site basis,considerably multiplying the number ofcustomizations it has to manage. Toserve customers more efficiently andeffectively, QAD Poland turned to theRoundtable configurationmanagement solution.

“Progress software products arecentral to the MFG/PRO solution,”says Kamil Skudlarski, Support andDevelopment Manager at QADPoland. "The flexibility of the Progress4GL language makes it easy for QADPoland to develop custom versions ofQAD products. And Roundtable’sseamless integration with the

Progress development environmentand its delivery of rich functionalitytakes that effort a step further. TheRoundtable Total SoftwareManagement System provides themanagement tools necessary fortracking and controlling changesduring our frequent update cycle. Byusing Roundtable as the configurationmanagement solution for tracking theunique development changes made byour team, we are free to focus on whatwe are here for –increasing customer satisfaction andmaintaining a more frequent releaseschedule.”

The ChallengeThe development team, led bySkudlarski, is made up of nine people,including two managers, two analysts,three programmers, one persondedicated to first line customersupport, and one to deployment. Thissmall team supports and maintainsmore than 70 customers.

The typical customer has multipleenterprise solutions that must beintegrated with MFG/PRO and otherQAD products in order to sustain theiroperational processes. Managing alarge customer base with individualcustomizations and integrationspresents a challenge to bothdevelopment and support resources.Managing the development andsupport workload with an increasingnumber of customers and no increasein QAD Poland resources would not

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be possible without the aid ofRoundtable.The demands on Skudlarski's teamare intense. Updates are done on-siteto further extend the resources of thedepartment. With a solution such asRoundtable, the deployment is simpleand intuitive and can dramaticallyreduce the time spent on thedelivery and installation process.

“Prior to the Roundtable installation,we had some critical challenges inupgrading our customers," Skudlarskisays. " The process was not clear orstandardized since each deploymentwas different and therefore timeconsuming. Although frequentupgrades provided our customers withnew functionality, those upgradeswere becoming costly and harder toimplement.”

Since our customers often have hugedatabases, the upgrade process mustbe secure, consistent and completeevery time. It must adhere to a firm setof standards and cannot dependsolely on the experience or ability ofthe programmer doing the installationorupgrade. With Roundtable, QADPoland’s clients can now install theirown releases, allowing QAD Poland tofocus on adding customer value.

“In many cases we are still doing theinstallation ourselves,” Skudlarskisays. “When Roundtable proceduresare installed underneath thecustomer’s update, Roundtable'smanagement tools make the updatemore reliable and of a higher quality. Enhancements are delivered fasterand are transparent to the end user.These aspects are critical to theultimate satisfaction of our customer.”

Without the Roundtable TotalSoftware Management System, QADPoland would have had trouble simplymaintaining current solutions, muchless be able to take on new business.The support demands of an ever-increasing customer base werebecoming burdensome and negativelyimpacting the company’s capacity forgrowth.

The Roundtable Solution"With the development anddeployment challenges QAD Polandfaced, we required much more than asimple version control tool." Skudlarskistates. “We needed a tool to helpcontrol the costs of an intensivedevelopment life cycle, which is criticalfor delivering a global enterprise ITsolution. We needed a tool that wouldallow us toeffectively manage resources,measure and track the systemchanges and automate thedeployment of applications.Roundtable has succeed in this role."

QAD Poland depends on Roundtableto shorten the development cycle,increase the deployment schedule,improve the reliability of the data andtrack the customized applications theircustomers’ solutions require.

Roundtable Total SoftwareManagement System is geared to theProgress developer. A process-oriented software configurationmanagement tool, it promotes teamdevelopment for large, complexclient/server development projects.The robust solution is innovative, easyto use, and seamlessly integrated withProgress.

QAD Poland tracks and monitors themodifications made to the base

product from QAD Corporate. In aninstant, Roundtable can update theentire team when a piece is modified.Roundtable protects the customercode developed specifically for eachclient, saving valuable time bydelivering updates that are reliableand available. Roundtable's open APIhas enabled QAD Poland to tracktasks specific to their customers.

Benefits of Roundtable“Adding the technological strengths ofRoundtable to our development and deployment process has taken QADPoland to a higher level by simplifyingmanagement, controllingthe development process and allowingus to surpass our competitors when itcomes to the frequency of releases,”Skudlarski says. “Our Roundtableimplementation certainly hascontributed to our ability to attractlarger customers and it has increasedour productivity, responsiveness, andreliability. It has made the processmore cost-efficient, allowing us tofocus on meeting business demandsrather than on the technology.”

Roundtable’s tight integration withProgress gives the developers theability to take advantage of a robustsoftware configuration managementtool, providing immediate andcomprehensive insight into the myriadof modifications made during customdevelopment. Roundtable deployssystems and updates, reducing thetime, cost, errors and management ofdevelopment projects.

“Without Roundtable and the control,standards and process it puts in place,we would not be able to deliver thesame level of service to ourcustomers,” Skudlarski says. "Ourcustomers require customization

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which adds a competitive advantageto a packaged solution. We deliver,maintain and support that solutionmore effectively and efficiently as aresult of Roundtable.”

Return on Investment“At the end of the day, we can serveour customers better, provide morefrequent updates, deliver newfunctionality to our clients and do it allwith the existing manpower andresources available to us in ourdepartment,” Skudlarski says. "Asthese demands increase, theRoundtable Total ManagementSystem continues to deliver. That’snot justa cost savings solution. It’s acustomer enhancement solution.”

The Bottom LineQAD maintains its leadership positionin this industry by delivering atargeted, unique solution that istechnologically more advanced than ofits competitors. The combination ofQAD technology and Roundtabledramatically helps both QAD Polandand its customers achieve acompetitive advantage in today'scomplex business environment.

QAD BackgroundFounded in 1979, QAD is a leadingprovider of enterprise and extendedsupply-chain management software tomultinational companies of all sizes,with special focus on the mid-market.QAD is based in Carpinteria in SantaBarbara County, USA, and isProgress’ largest Application Provider.QAD software helps speed businessprocesses for more than 300,000licensed users at over 4,600 licensedsites in more than 80 countries.Considered a leading provider of e-business solutions for manufacturingand distribution companies, QAD’sindustry-specific applications deliverthe functionality necessary to runtoday’s corporate enterprise byleveraging mission-critical information.

QAD's MFG/PRO software is acomprehensive, open architected,Internet-enabled enterprise solutionthat has set new standards forfunctionality, rapid implementationand ease of use. Available in 26languages and able to support multiplecurrencies, QAD software providescomprehensive, fully integratedsolutions that target the needs ofautomotive, consumer products,electronics, food and beverage,industrial products, and medicalcompanies. MFG/PRO supportscentralized, client/server and thin-clientconfigurations and is ideal fordistributed operations.