QAS addresses Professional Advantage

Melbourne ISV and system integrator Professional Advantage has signed a partnership deal with QAS to bundle the latter's address management software with Epicor CRM for its mid-market customers.

Craig Charlton, GM of the Epicor division and associate director at Professional Advantage, said adding QAS' QuickAddress proprietary address management and validation would help its Epicor-based CRM push into mid-market Australian companies turning over $10 million to $500 million a year.

'This will increase demand,' he said. 'The technology fits very well and integration [with the Epicor product] was very easy to achieve.' Charlton said Professional Advantage expected to sign three to five more opportunities a year as a result of the deal, and expected to add five staff to its current 42 to 45 Epicor division employees by June next year.

'The standard CRM software, you need to have some single plug in with Australia Post-validated address information,' he said. 'One key functionality of any CRM system is accuracy of data, particularly in mail order-type environments, streamlining the input and regular validation of the database.'

Charlton knew of one other company in Australia that provided that Australia Post-validated address information, he said.

He said the Epicor division had seen strong takeup of CRM in aged care, health, distribution, IT & T, property and financial services verticals. 'Although in terms of horizontal, generic CRM, times are very very tough,' Charlton said.

Professional Advantage's eight-year-old Epicor division had won Epicor's reseller of the year award for the past four years, he added.

Glenn Parker, MD of QAS Asia-Pacific, said the vendor wanted to lift sales in distribution, health, retail and professional services verticals.

'They are high-value markets. Customers looking at the Epicor solution already have an appreciation of data integrity. They are searching for tools to improve the underlying data quality of CRM systems,' he said.

QAS products could thereby produce ROI in 12 months, Parker claimed.
QAS has also appointed former ACA Pacific account manager Alexander James to manage the Professional Advantage relationship and develop its channel partnerships.

Professional Advantage claims to be the largest Australian supplier of international business management applications to mid-sized companies. It has three divisions: Microsoft, Epicor and systems union.