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News Release
Prelude Systems Hits a Milestone for MITS
Installations
MITS Application Support Plan Helps Reseller Achieve 33% Adoption
Rate
SEATTLE, WA, October 8, 2003 - Management Information Tools, Inc.,
("MITI") the developer of the leading MultiValue online analytical
processing/business intelligence (OLAP/BI) tool MITS, announced a reseller
milestone today. MITS reseller, Prelude Systems, has affirmed that
one-third of its customer base now uses MITS, with even more penetration
into Prelude's distribution software customer base expected this year.
MITS (Management Information Tool Software) is a powerful business
intelligence solution that offers advanced dynamic and interactive data
reporting. By design, it takes information in the company's system and
makes it quickly and easily accessible. Prelude Systems develops and sells
a feature-rich distribution package with optional integrated modules such
as Rental, Marketing/Contact Management, Light Manufacturing and Data
Warehousing.
Pat Gilbrough, president of Management Information Tools, Inc. (MITI),
believes the reason Prelude has recently accelerated MITS sales is because
Prelude has recognized that OLAP technology is a critical component of its
offerings to the distribution industry. "The Prelude user base is simply
responding to this proven success in using a business intelligence tool,"
Gilbrough said. "Additionally, Prelude was one of the first partners to
embrace our MITS Application Support Plan, which has positioned the company
to sell MITS packages more efficiently and effectively."
"MITI possesses an outstanding track record in the MultiValue market
because it has proven it can support its resellers' all-encompassing needs
for premium products, service and support," said George James, director of
Partner Relations at Prelude Systems. "We've seen an increased demand in
MITI's leading OLAP technology combined with our world-class distribution
platform, and I believe this success factor is three-fold: the partnership
with MITS; the affordability of MITS; and the power of MITS in the
distribution marketplace."
Success Factor #1: A Partnership Plan Designed for Success
MITI initiated the MITS Application Support (MAS) Plan earlier this year.
It is designed to assist value-added resellers (VARs) with sales,
implementation and on-going support of MITS application interfaces between
a VAR's vertical software and the MITS OLAP system. "The MAS plan has
helped VARs, such as Prelude, to sell more product without increasing its
overhead," Gilbrough explained. "MAS supports VARs that do not want to add
technical resource demands for an additional third-party product, but still
want to benefit from having a state-of-the-art business intelligence tool
as part of their software offering."
George James echoed these benefits of MAS: "MITI's' willingness to take the
burden off of Prelude, take care of the MITS installations, and guarantee
the satisfaction of the customer has been invaluable. They build all of the
data cubes, do the analysis with our customers, and train them to use the
product. It's always been a challenge to bring on new technologies and find
the time for the development team to learn something new. But when MITI
said, `you sell it and we'll take care of the rest,' it became that much
easier to be successful."
Success Factor #2: An Affordable Solution for Prelude Users
The second reason for success, according to James, is that MITS is an
affordable alternative to other high-priced business intelligence
offerings. "Most of the BI solutions, like DataStage and Cognos, cost a
minimum of $50,000 to$150,000. We've looked at these solutions for many
years with our clients, but in the distribution marketplace, no one can
justify the price. MITS, however, is affordable. For roughly $15,000, our
users can get a powerful solution that actually works and they love to use
every day. MITI's strategy has worked well for our business: It's good
technology with a fair pricing model so our customers can instantly see the
value of it. MITS has become something that's easier to sell every day."
MITS is the only BI/OLAP product specifically designed to run in the
MultiValue or Pick (UniVerse, UniData, jBASE, D3, mvEnterprise and/or
mvBase) environment. With MITS being a fraction of the cost of
non-MultiValue solutions that offer less functionality and much more
complexity, MITS is intentionally priced and designed to be the most
powerful and efficient solution available for MultiValue users. And because
MITS is closely integrated with Prelude's UniData-based distribution
software, the result is a powerful, critical and cost-effective tool for
wholesale distributors.
John Clark is Prelude System's director of Sales. He said that offering
MITS in a turnkey approach has made the investment more palatable for
Prelude clients. "We can offer our customers a data warehousing product
that's already configured, already built and ready for the application
software that they're running their business on. They don't have to take a
data warehouse engine and spend the next two years with their IT staff
trying to make use of this new tool to build the warehouse."
Success Factor #3: A Critical Component for Distribution Businesses
According to Clark, the MITS OLAP technology has become a critical
component to Prelude's distribution enterprise system. "We promote the MITS
solution to our end users time and time again, because deploying data
warehousing is simply one of the smartest things a distribution company can
do to quickly improve the areas that matter-issues such as surplus
inventory, dead stock, over usage, and corporate profitability."
"One of the issues our distribution customers face is an enormous amount of
information," explained James. "Our distribution software can capture
information at a very detailed level, save the data, and give it back to
the users if and when they need it. However, some of our customers do
several hundred to several thousand sales orders per day, and over time
that accumulates into very large amounts of information."
MITS takes the captured information from the Prelude system and
pre-processes it into MultiValue OLAP hypercubes in accounts on the same
database next to the operational data. With the information in this format
ready to be accessed, the customer views its data in a true OLAP /
interactive reporting environment with response times measured in seconds.
James continued, "When it comes time to look at the data, they don't have
to wait for it to run. And once it's printed, they don't have to say `now
that I know this, I wish I knew something else.' MITS has already given
them all of the data they need, and it's available to them in the format
that they want to see it in."
"Customers with these large amounts of information, like distribution
businesses, cannot effectively analyze their information without OLAP
technology," explained Gilbrough. "This is what makes MITS so different
than the less powerful and somewhat ineffective report generators on the
market. The functionality exclusive to OLAP is the key to increased
flexibility and speed to help companies manage their businesses more
effectively."
California-based Keystone Automotive is a good example of a Prelude
customer that quickly found the value in MITS' flexibility and speed after
unsuccessfully trying to launch other business intelligence solutions. As
the nation's largest distributor of replacement collision parts and
supplies, Keystone's business intelligence solution couldn't handle the
crossbred data from its various computing platforms around the nation. "We
used to work all weekend managing month-end closings," said Jesus
Arraign,
chief information officer for Keystone. "Since installing MITS, everyone
goes home on Friday nights, and our sales force is operating in real-time,
versus after-the-fact-a scenario that's already contributing to our bottom
line."
"Distributors have millions of dollars wrapped up in their inventory, and
MITS' analytical capabilities are used by Prelude customers to quickly
pinpoint and act on the most critical issues," said Gilbrough "We've
designed our software to be an efficient data analysis tool for any
business, but it's especially valuable for distributors who have tens of
thousands of parts to manage."
According to Clark, "MITS is the sizzle on the steak for our massive
enterprise solution for the distribution industry. The MITS product helps
us to win the business. If we didn't have MITS, we'd need to have some
other product to fill that void for data analysis. And our customers love
the product. They are always looking for more things for MITI to do for
them."
# # #
About Prelude
Prelude Systems, Inc. is a leading high-technology provider of
customer-centric enterprise solutions for customer service, integrated
customer relationship management, asset management, and e-commerce for high
volume industrial distributors. Prelude's mission is to help distributors
maximize efficiency, quality, and competitive advantage through the use of
advanced information systems technology.
For more information - Contact Management Information Tools at
info@mits.com
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