Allies with local integrators to bring its business process management solutions to new markets
Vienna, VA — September 20, 2004 — Business process management (BPM) solution provider HandySoft Global has announced two new partnerships to bring its applications to the Israeli and German markets.
HandySoft has is allying with Israel-based BICONIX International, an integrator of business intelligence solutions. Effective immediately, BICONIX will act as sole agent for HandySoft in the Israeli market, delivering HandySoft's BPM solutions and specifically focusing on the Sarbanes-Oxley compliance solution, SOXA Accelerator.
SOXA Accelerator from HandySoft is designed to help companies meet the stringent reporting requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and reduce the associated costs. Companies in the EMEA region with a U.S. stock exchange listing are required to comply with the act by April 2005.
The Israeli business community is particularly affected, as Israel has the largest proportion of companies listed on NASDAQ outside of the United States and Canada. Recent HandySoft research showed that these companies face a 35 percent increase in audit fees as a result of mandatory compliance to SOX, equating to an additional annual burden of $1.64 million per company.
Aside from the SOX solution, BICONIX will also market HandySoft's BPM solutions across various industries, based on the BizFlow product portfolio. BizFlow controls and optimizes core business processes, and has a global client base of organizations in finance, government, healthcare and manufacturing. It is expected that the partnership with BICONIX will be expanded to include joint service development and marketing initiatives.
David Donin, CEO of BICONIX, said: "The HandySoft BizFlow product suite matches our own strength in helping companies structure, manage and harness value from their corporate data. In today's regulatory environment, this is a compelling proposition."
Wendy Cohen, EMEA sales and operations director for HandySoft, said: "The Israeli business community is ideally placed to reap the benefits of business process management, particularly as the U.S.-listed community moves to tighten up internal financial controls and demonstrate financial probity to the regulators, markets, rating agencies and their shareholders."
Meanwhile, HandySoft has also formed an alliance with one of Europe's leading providers of information and communications technology (ICT), T-Systems, a division of Deutsche Telekom.
As a starting point, the companies will work together on projects in the market of business process management and business process outsourcing. HandySoft will provide software solutions and T-Systems will be responsible for consulting, customizing, hosting and service. The applications will run in T-Systems data centers.
Initially, sales activity will target the German, Austrian and Swiss markets and will focus on such existing HandySoft solutions as government applications, accounts receivable/accounts payable (AR/AP) applications and SOX solutions. The companies said that if their cooperation successfully develops, the sales focus could be expanded to include further solutions from HandySoft's BizFlow product portfolio, and other jointly developed services.
The BizFlow portfolio could be delivered both as a solution from HandySoft and as part of managed hosting or outsourcing services from T-Systems' e-business technology and managed service capabilities.
HandySoft's Cohen commented, "We are confident that cooperating with such a respected European integrator as T- Systems will be successful and will significantly enhance our position in the German-speaking world.
"Europe's strengthening economic recovery is heralding a revitalization of investment in IT," Cohen added. "At the same time, European corporations are under pressure to tighten up internal financial controls in line with their U.S. counterparts, and it is even likely that legislation similar to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will be implemented in Europe. We predict that business process management solutions will play a key role in meeting these market needs."
