Ideate

1 min. with a Superhero: Paul de Villiers from The Bluebox

by Fred Roed on 02/10/09 at 3:04 pm
1 comment

It takes a fair amount of business bravado to launch a software product in the same playing field as SAP, Microsoft Great Plains and JD Edwards. Even more so if you’re based in the sleepy South African town of Pietermaritzburg. This morning we’re chatting to Paul de Villiers from The BlueBox, an ERP/Business Systems Software company who have spent the past 12 years developing a web-based business management system that is being marketed through partners around the world.

So what does your system do, Paul?
The system, known as BlueBox2.0 includes Sales, Point-Of-Sale, Loyalty, Procurement, Manufacturing, Inventory, Finance, Human Resources, Marketing, Communications and Publishing modules. What makes us unique in this market is that we cater specifically for SMME’s by offering 90% of our code as open source, developing on open-source platforms and pricing our product per server/site and not per user. We are also able to very rapidly provide customized best-fit mini-modules through the BB2.0 development platform. All things considered it offers smaller businesses tons of system functionality at a fraction of the traditional big-system prices.

OK, so for laymen, like us, what the heck is “ERP” anyway?
Enterprise Resource Planning is the process of systematizing and integrating every aspect of a business (staff, stock, time, money etc) into a centralized, manageable data asset and thereby allowing for intelligent planning and optimization of business processes. It is physically embodied in the JIT/KANBAN/LEAN methods of manufacturing, but can be modified to apply to almost every resource in your enterprise.

Sure, sure. I used the JIT/KANBAN/LEAN method on the dance floor on the weekend. Paul, what blows your hair back running The BlueBox?
We love solving business problems! The BlueBox team are all passionate about designing solutions that fit customer requirements and streamline their business processes. Feedback from customers at the end of the process is also great, when you hear that you have been able to highlight inefficiencies or cash-flow holes which were crippling them.

Is this quite a competitive industry? And how do you differentiate from other software purveyors, from SAP to the cloud computing guys and the other SAAS guys?
Yes, it is competitive. Our USP’s are our price-point (the fact that you do not pay per user), our portability (we are a zero-software browser-only platform which can be hosted internally or outsourced to host online) and our flexibility (being almost entirely open-source our platform puts power into the hands of the customer).

How has the recession affected the industry? Are clients still holding down the hand-break or are things starting to speed up at all?
Things got very quiet about 6 months ago, but we have started to see some nice enquiries coming through and it feels like every part of the market is starting to shake off the dust and get going again. In particular we have seen some wonderful interest in our web-based point-of-sale module in the Retail and FMCG sectors. There seems to be lots of work opening up in central Africa. On the non-transactional side we have seen lots of interest in our marketing and loyalty systems in the UK.

What advice do you have for development companies wanting to grow their business in this environment?
I believe that developing on open-source technologies is the way to go. It allows you to focus on the value-add part of your contribution and it also gives your customers more control, making your products more appealing. From a practical point of view I can also suggest that developing in the ERP space is so broad in scope that one needs to decide on specialized areas in which to focus rather than trying to provide the entire spectrum of solutions. Find a niche and develop a product, not a service.

Finally, do you think South African IT and software companies can compete effectively on a global level with India, China, Russia and Brazil?
If you are talking about sale of a pre-developed product, absolutely. Sale of bespoke solutions ‘by the hour’ is another story. Our prices (i.e. for product rather than service) are regularly compared with those of offshore solutions and we are constantly more affordable than those offerings.

Thanks Paul. To find out more about their business, visit the BlueBox website.

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.

Tags: business software

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