Fortune award-winner Epicor breezes through Windy City

Enterprise business software solutions Epicor Software Corporation has been on a bit of a creative and financial roll lately, and the company is able to use the International Marketing Technology Show currently going on in Chicago as a springboard for some deserved publicity.

One new release first shown at the Chicago show is the latest release of Epicor Vantage, the company’s service-oriented architecture manufacturing solution. Entitled Epicor for Automotive, this particular solution is specially designed to support paperless manufacturing, and the Epicor brain trust hopes it will first appeal to its existing niche clientele of over 240 automotive manufacturing customers.

Epicor for Automotive has embedded functions of customer relationship management; advanced planning and scheduling; and manufacturing execution systems functionality; supplier and customer collaboration; real-time dashboards and analytics. New capabilities touted are advanced EDI; demand management; and purchase contract functions. Extended EDI functionality promises to “support every automotive protocol and network.”

The system handles creation, analysis, manipulation and reconciliation of cumulative records for customer releases. Epicor for Automotive also promises full support of barcode labeling and handheld transactions.

A second Epicor Vantage offering being lovingly displayed is Epicor for Aerospace and Defense, an enterprise solution designed to enable manufacturers in this industry to improve operational visibility and efficiency. Epicor claims approximately 150 customers in the aerospace and defense industry.

New capabilities for aerospace and defense manufacturers include enhanced project management functions, advanced electronic data interchange capabilities, enhanced supply chain management capabilities, and robust business process management. Specifically, the Epicor program now includes support for multi-level work breakdown structures, theoretically allowing material costs and inventory to be associated with a project for precise tracking of costs.

Like Epicor for Automotive, Epicor for A&D EDI functionality is delivered through an alliance with TIE Commerce Software, and both programs offer full support of barcode labeling and handheld transactions.

Epicor Software Corporation has received a number of kudos lately (more on this below), but the biggest score in terms of prestige that the firm has gotten lately was its inclusion on Fortune Magazine’s 100 fastest-growing companies for 2006.

Upon announcing the award, Epicor chairman and chief executive officer George Klaus cited some financial statistics from his company, reporting that Epicor had seen 28 percent year-over-year total revenue growth rate in 2005. He reported that revenue for the first six months of 2006 had grown by more than 33 percent when compared to 2005. And according to Klaus, Epicor boasts a customer retention rate of over 94 percent.

To qualify for Fortune’s list this year, a company must be incorporated in the U.S.; have a minimum market capitalization of US $250 million; have a stock price of at least US $5; have been trading continuously since June 30, 2003; have revenue and net income for the four quarters ended on or before March 31, 2006 of at least US $50 million and US $10 million, respectively; and have posted a compound annual growth in revenue and earnings per share of at least 25 percent annually over the last three years.

The list of public companies, will appear in the September 18, 2006 issue of Fortune, and can be seen online at www.fortune.com.

As for other bragging rights earned by the firm, Epicor was named one of the fastest-growing technology companies in 2006 by Business 2.0 magazine in June, was named “Company of the Year” by the Software Council of Southern California for the second consecutive year, was a Member’s Choice award for “Best After Sales Support” from ContactCenterWorld.com, and won a Stevie Award for “Best Customer Service Organization” from the International Business Awards program.

Founded in 1984, Irvine, Calif.-based Epicor serves over 20,000 customers in more than 140 countries in thirty-one languages. Epicor delivers end-to-end, industry-specific solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail, hospitality and services.