Geac MPC 7 Eases Broad Adoption of Performance Management in Large Enterprises
10 May 2005 - 12:24AM
PR Newswire (US)
Geac MPC 7 Eases Broad Adoption of Performance Management in Large
Enterprises New planning module, consolidation features highlight
powerful new release of Geac's flagship integrated performance
management software suite ORLANDO, FL, May 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/
-- At Geac ALLIANCE2005 - May 9, 2005 - Geac(R) (TSX: GAC and
NASDAQ: GEAC), a global provider of software solutions to the CFO,
today launched a major new release of Geac MPC, its flagship
integrated performance management software suite. Geac MPC 7 lets
large enterprises easily put powerful performance management
capabilities - including strategy, planning, budgeting,
forecasting, consolidation and reporting - in the hands of finance
and business professionals across an organization, while preserving
centralized control of critical information. As the first fully
integrated, "closed loop" performance management system designed
for enterprise-wide adoption, Geac MPC 7 offers Global 2000
companies multiple benefits, including vastly improved
enterprise-wide planning and alignment, streamlined reporting, and
simplified compliance. According to a recent Aberdeen Group
industry benchmark study, best-in-class companies deploying "closed
loop" corporate performance management (CPM) systems realize on
average eight percent higher gross margins than the industry norm,
and have about seven points greater market share in their most
profitable segments. Geac MPC recently received the highest ratings
among all competitive offerings in Ventana Research's 2005
Performance Management Vendor and Product Scorecard. MPC 7 provides
functionality designed to help organizations transform their
strategic and operational planning processes into a collaborative
platform that links strategy to actions and facilitates
enterprise-wide communication of that information. "New pressures
require businesses to adopt holistic approaches to CPM," Lee
Geishecker, vice president at IT research firm Gartner, Inc., said.
"Many executives treat strategy formulation as a one-off exercise
by defining a strategy and then single-mindedly following that
strategy regardless of changes in the business environment.
Scenario analysis should encourage - and CPM systems should enable
- strategic planners to create and maintain a portfolio of
alternative strategies. These can be considered when sudden,
significant shifts occur in business circumstances, environmental
factors or economic conditions and when data from the operations
feedback loop indicates that the strategy is not achieving its
objectives." Geac MPC 7 advances how enterprise-wide strategic and
operational business planning is done. Rather than just
periodically updating a scorecard with operational results, Geac
MPC 7 helps organizations transform and communicate their strategic
plans into quantifiable objectives, tactics, and supporting
activities with assigned ownership at the correct responsibility
level throughout the enterprise. The result is a collaborative
environment for planning, tracking, and predicting progress toward
key management objectives. "Many companies have tried without
success to use standalone scorecards or dashboards to track
corporate performance," Brian Hartlen, Vice President of Global
Marketing at Geac, said. "Geac MPC 7 enables an integrated approach
in which companies can define and monitor progress towards the
successful implementation of strategies, as well as the resource
allocations and activities that support them. This provides a deep
level of context in addition to the measures and financial results,
which truly allows management to drive their business and course
correct as necessary." New Geac Planning module Geac Planning is a
sophisticated planning application that is geared toward making the
planning process easier, from a single planner creating "what if"
operational plans to multiple teams of collaborative planners
around the world. The Geac Planning application is driven through
an easy-to-use Excel interface. A planner may set a high-level
target needed to achieve a desired profitability percentage, for
example, and then let the system adjust ("spread") the values of
the chosen plan variables to achieve the goal. Planners may also
add, delete, or change business assumptions and structures at will
and in real time, leveraging Excel's strong and flexible data
gathering, reporting, and formatting capabilities. This creates a
much more nimble planning environment that also drives changes in
operational plans and budgets for the enterprise. As a result,
alignment throughout the organization occurs quickly and
efficiently, and communication is dramatically enhanced. Because
the application is built on the Geac MPC financial application
foundation with centralized controls, business users can
collaborate on the same plan without having to keep track of how
the changes made through the planning process will be driven into
the "system of record." Geac Planning organizes and manages the
sharing of structures and data across the planning environment,
allowing the information to be used to seed the budget, measure
operational plans, or build long-range strategic planning models.
Easier, more flexible reporting Meeting the need for sophisticated
formalized reporting, Geac MPC 7 offers a new management reporting
capability featuring a creation wizard, which streamlines initial
report design and shortens the time to create and deliver critical
enterprise reporting. Excel power users often want to do highly
personalized analysis and reporting from their performance
management systems. MPC 7 extends the current Excel Services
functionality to deliver Excel cell-based reporting capabilities.
Users can leverage the data in the centralized application without
giving up any of the flexibility they need to create virtually any
layout they choose without the need for pre-built views, templates,
or formatting requirements. In addition, Geac offers a production
reporting module that integrates Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Reporting Services, broadening the range of reporting options
available to Geac MPC customers. Simplified ERP integration Geac
MPC OpenLink is a Web-based mapping tool that simplifies the
process of accurately moving data from multiple enterprise resource
planning (ERP) and other source systems to the Geac MPC
application. OpenLink helps to quickly define the mapping profile
using either a basic or advanced pattern-matching syntax for one or
more data sources; processes the mapping profile, loads the
information into the application, and provides an audit trail of
the mapping process. OpenLink is designed to work with the most
popular and widely deployed ERP and general ledgers on the market.
Geac MPC Fast-Track is a set of packaged application integrations
between the Geac MPC performance management software and several
Geac ERP offerings. Fast-Track integrations available with the Geac
MPC 7 release include: Geac E Series, Geac M Series, Geac
SmartStream, and Geac System21. Geac MPC 7 has been delivered to
early adopter customers and will be generally available worldwide
this summer. Pricing varies based on system configuration.
Additional product information is available at
http://www.performance.geac.com/mpc/mpc.cfm. About Geac Geac (TSX:
GAC and NASDAQ: GEAC) is a global enterprise software company that
addresses the needs of the Chief Financial Officer. Geac's
best-in-class technology products and services help organizations
do more with less in an increasingly competitive environment,
amidst growing regulatory pressure, and in response to other
business issues confronting the CFO. Further information is
available at http://www.geac.com/ or through e-mail at . This press
release may contain forward-looking statements of Geac's
intentions, beliefs, expectations and predictions for the future.
These forward-looking statements often include use of the future
tense with words such as "will," "may," "intends," "anticipates,"
"expects" and similar conditional or forward-looking words and
phrases. These forward-looking statements are neither promises nor
guarantees. They are only predictions that are subject to risks and
uncertainties, and they may differ materially from actual future
events or results. Geac undertakes no obligation to update or
revise the information contained herein. Important factors that
could cause a material difference between these forward-looking
statements and actual events include, among other things: our
ability to increase revenues from new license sales, cross-sell
into our existing customer base and reduce customer attrition;
whether we can identify and acquire synergistic businesses and, if
so, whether we can successfully integrate them into our existing
operations; whether we are able to deliver products and services
within required time frames and budgets to meet increasingly
competitive customer demands and performance guaranties; risks
inherent in fluctuating international currency exchange rates in
light of our global operations and the unpredictable effect of
geopolitical world and local events; whether we are successful in
our continued efforts to manage expenses effectively and maintain
profitability; our ability to achieve revenue from products and
services that are under development; the uncertain effect of the
competitive environment in which we operate and resulting pricing
pressures; and whether the anticipated effects and results of our
new product offerings and successful product implementation will be
realized. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that
relate to Geac's business and operations are summarized in more
detail from time to time in our filings with the United States
Securities and Exchange Commission and with the Canadian Securities
Administrators. Please refer to Geac's most recent quarterly
reports available through the website maintained by the SEC at
http://www.sec.gov/ and through the website maintained by the
Canadian Securities Administrators and the Canadian Depository for
Securities Limited at http://www.sedar.com/ for more information on
risk factors that could cause actual results to differ. Geac is a
registered trademark of Geac Computer Corporation Limited. All
other marks are trademarks of their respective owners. DATASOURCE:
Geac Computer Corporation Limited CONTACT: Media Contact: David
Domeshek, Geac, (508) 871-5064, ; Investor Contact: Laura
Hindermann, Geac, (508) 871-5045,
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