CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
5 March 2007
Company News
IFS and NEC Strengthen Alliance by Signing Reseller Agreement in North America
IFS announced that it has signed a reseller agreement for the North American market with strategic business partner NEC Corporation of America (NEC), a premier provider of IT, network, storage, and storage software solutions. The agreement will enable NEC to sell IFS' component-based enterprise software suite, IFS ApplicationsT 7, in North America. It also will allow both companies to work collaboratively to better serve the growing number of North American subsidiaries of Japanese companies.
NEC just completed a process improvement consulting project together with IFS for Funai Corp., Inc., Torrance, California. This project included moving Funai to a recent version of IFS Applications and the purchase of additional IFS user licenses to accommodate Funai's growth in North America. The result will enable Funai to take advantage of IFS' latest industry-specific functionality for the high-tech industry and realize the benefits of the latest technologies. Funai has been an IFS customer since 1999 and uses the software to support a multisite distribution and product return processing operation.
Funai Corp . is the North American sales and marketing company for consumer electronic products manufactured by its parent company, Funai Electric Co., Ltd., of Japan. Funai Corp. sells its products through major North American retailers under the brand names Sylvania, Symphonic, Emerson, and Funai.
"Automobile and high-tech manufacturers throughout the Asia Pacific region continue to expand their presence in North America, bringing suppliers with them," said Masaru Otake, Director of the Manufacturing Solutions Group for NEC Corporation of America. "To run these new plants, they are looking for a modern, agile enterprise software solution, based on the latest technology, that will help them better manage the supply chain from top to bottom. Our partnership with IFS, which has been further strengthened by the signing of the reseller agreement, puts us in an excellent position to support these companies."
"Expanding our current relationship is a win-win for IFS and NEC because it enables us to better serve Japanese-owned companies and their suppliers in North America," said David Eager, Director of Strategic Alliances for IFS North America. "At the same time, we can better meet the needs of Japanese subsidiaries of North American companies. One important result of our collaboration with NEC has been the incorporation of a variety of Japanese business concepts, such as Kanban enhancements and better support for lean processes, into IFS Applications 7."
IFS' longstanding global partnership with NEC has resulted in a variety of IFS Applications implementations, many of them in the Japanese manufacturing sector. In 2004, IFS and NEC extended the partnership to Southeast Asia, China, and other countries, with a strong focus on the automotive industry.
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