As a piece of terminology, the label industrial ‘middle market’ may be somewhat misleading.
Midmarket still generally means fairly big business, but (depending upon which measure you use to gauge it) it simply means that level of business operations that does not fall into the Small to Medium sized Enterprise (SME) category… and is not large enough to rank as major scale corporate enterprise.
If anything, the term midmarket may ultimately transmogrify into some notion of those firms operating at interlinking points of the global supply chain; a sort of business-to-business player that works inside the guts of the industrial machine.
Business nomenclature and definitions notwithstanding, midmarket is a defined sector and it one that ERP specialists large and small specifically classify.
Happily to be classified in this space is Forterro, a Germany-headquartered provider of ERP software solutions to more than 10,000 midmarket manufacturing and production companies, predominantly in Europe.
Zwei geschäftliche meilensteine
From its newsfile then, Forterro has this month specified two business milestones.
Firstly, its product business abas Software GmbH acquired abas System GmbH (Berlin), a value-added reseller serving northern and central Germany.
Secondly, Forterro created Forterro Bulgaria Ltd., which will function as a regional service centre for abas ERP customers with operations in Eastern Europe.
“Today’s news is a continuation of the story we began with our acquisition of [the similarly named] abas Systemhaus GmbH (Reinbek) in October,” said Richard Furby, general manager of abas. “Integrating the talent and knowledge of key strategic partners like abas System GmbH (Berlin) into our direct business is how we take greater control of the quality of our solutions and greater ownership of the success of our customers.”
Abas attained 100 per cent ownership of its partner abas system GmbH in a transaction that closed in December. Headquartered in Berlin and supported by a secondary location in Rhine, abas system GmbH operates as an exclusive value-added reseller for abas ERP.
Bolstered Bulgarian business benefits
The creation of Forterro Bulgaria Ltd. follows the liquidation of a minority-owned abas partner in Bulgaria. All employees from the partner business will be hired by abas Software GmbH to build a wholly-owned subsidiary that is directly servicing and supporting abas ERP implementations that extend from DACH into Eastern Europe. The initiative follows the company’s aggressive push to better align its direct international operations with those of its customers.
“We need to be where our customers are and where they want to go,” said Richard Furby, general manager of abas Software GmbH. “Bulgaria presented the perfect location to support them, given its proximity to customer sites, as well as the product expertise and language skills of the team there. Opening this regional hub is a huge step forward in our strategy to provide a more consistent customer experience around the world.”
Forterro Bulgaria Ltd., led by managing director Veselka Petrova, will be operational immediately to continue serving and supporting abas’ existing customers in Bulgaria.
Dean Forbes, CEO of Forterro, sees even more potential for Forterro’s Bulgarian operations. “Wherever we expand in the world for one product, it could naturally lead to opportunities for other products,” he said.
“From a global perspective, we can leverage Forterro Bulgaria as a base from which we can support our business units in a myriad of ways, from product-specific R&D and consulting services to functional support for our backoffice and local operations. The possibilities are truly endless, and I’m anxious to begin exploring the opportunities that make the most sense as we evolve Forterro’s strategy and growth story,” added Forbes.
Just one Forterro
Although Forterro might sound like a cross between an Italian icecream and a well-known chocolate hazelnut candy, the company’s name more likely derives from ‘fortress’ to convey strength, strong-holding and steadfastness… attributes which should arguably see the business perform effectively whether it resides in the midmarket zone or ultimately elevates itself to any wider scale of business operations.
