SAP SMB News
by Sue Twombly

Ki Solutions: Business Harmony for SMBs To a samurai, "Ki" (pronounced "key") means a harmony between mind, body and spirit. For Ki Solutions, a new SAP Distribution Partner for mySAP All-in-One and SAP Business One, it means a harmony between people, processes and technology that keeps business humming - and all for a fixed price and timeline.

Working in unison with mid-market companies since 1997, Axion Solutions will now offer small and midsize businesses (SMBs) mySAP All-in-One and SAP Business One solutions through its new division, Ki Solutions.

As an SAP Distribution Partner, Ki Solutions builds upon Axion's proven track record as a leading provider of software integration solutions and a reseller for other major software vendors. Ki will serve mid-market companies in New England and focus vertically on the life sciences/medical device industry in the western United States.

Offering SMBs end-to-end solutions from sales to service and across hardware, software and support, Ki Solutions will work with customers to align business processes across their companies - keeping them in synch with business goals and future growth.

In Tune with the Mid-Market

The mid-market is now a hot topic with technology providers. Revenue opportunities there are making many providers who work within the large-company space take notice of the mid-market's growing appetite for technology. Looking at SMBs through "big-company" eyes, Paula Milano, co-founder of Ki Solutions and Axion Solutions, says some providers fail to see what's really important to SMBs.

According to Milano, providers with a traditional mid-market focus and a history of working with companies in that segment have an advantage in understanding and meeting the needs of SMBs.

"For Ki Solutions, that's where our mindset has always been," Milano says. "We understand the requirements for a mid-market company are just as complex as a Fortune 1000 company. But SMBs have less time and resources to make the implementation successful. They have dollar constraints and people constraints and they need to condense implementation time to lessen the impact on their day-to-day operations and speed ROI."

Working in Concert with Time and Resource Restraints

How does Ki Solutions put this insight to work for its mid-market customers? Ki takes a faster, less costly approach: A fixed price and timeline mySAP All-in-One solution or SAP Business One solution, implemented by its own senior consultants who understand the SMB world. Providing both solutions allows the company to address the varying technology requirements for the broad group of businesses that make up the mid-market.

Launched in the US in 2003 to extend SAP solutions to a new segment of small businesses, SAP Business One supports companies with as few as 10 and as many as several hundred employees and can be implemented in a few weeks.

Based on mySAP Business Suite, mySAP All-in-One solutions are developed by SAP partners for SMBs that need a high degree of industry-specific requirements from their business software. Pre-packaged, easy to implement and affordable, these solutions draw on SAP Best Practices from more than 30 years of experience and the deep vertical industry expertise of SAP and its business partners.

As an SAP Distribution Partner, Ki Solutions can now offer SAP Business One solutions or mySAP All-in-One vertical industry solutions to mid-market companies within its SAP sales territory.

To speed implementation even further, Ki Solutions takes what Milano says is a unique approach, one that differs greatly from the multi-person, multi-year implementations done by large consulting companies.

"Instead of bringing five people in to focus on specific modules, we bring in one senior consultant who understands the whole business flow. So, not just accounts receivable, but the entire order-to-cash cycle," she says. "That's where we really deliver value to our customers, by working with them to deliver an easy-to-use system that's up and running in as little as 16 weeks and with very little impact on their jobs."

This cross-functional understanding, coupled with a fully integrated mySAP All-in-One solution or SAP Business One solution, means customers don't have to worry about building interfaces between modules, such as financial and manufacturing. "They receive a fully integrated solution that provides visibility across their whole company," Milano says.

Good Vibes for the Future

A completely integrated solution also makes growth easier, in high contrast to the customized applications that tend to be rigid and hard to change as business needs change. Ki consultants also help companies put the business processes, workflows and alerts in place to manage those changes.

"All of our customers are really fast-growth companies and controlling that growth is one of their biggest challenges," Milano says, noting that this is particularly true in the medical device industry, a market comprising mostly start-ups that need to be well prepared for high growth once their products complete clinical trials.

"As soon as their products are validated and they go into production, they typically experience exploding growth," explains Milano. "When they do, they need a solution that's there to support them - one that delivers keen visibility into the business, from suppliers all the way to customers. By leveraging our experience with SAP's capabilities, Ki Solutions provides customers with a complete view of business processes for sound decision making as they grow."

Ki Solutions is now developing its own mySAP All-in-One solution for the medical device market and will develop mySAP All-in-One solutions for the consumer product goods and wholesale market in the future.