IFS, the global enterprise applications company, has announced that wastewater technology and services experts Jacopa, will implement IFS Managed Cloud on Microsoft Azure following its spin-off from parent company Ovivo. The platform will help maximize business development for Jacopa as it separates from Ovivo’s IT infrastructure; providing 72 employees at four UK sites with real-time information access across key processes including purchasing, manufacturing and support.
Jacopa was created in March 2015 following the sale of Ovivo Inc’s UK municipal business to the existing senior management team. The agreement brings together some of the UK’s best-known wastewater brands under the new Jacopa umbrella, specializing in the design and project management of systems and equipment used in the treatment of municipal and industrial water and wastewater treatment. The newly formed company now offers its customers an end-to-end service, from product manufacturing to maintenance and repair.
As part of its management sale, Jacopa was committed to moving off Ovivo’s IT system by November 2015. With the deadline looming, the company approached a number of ERP vendors for a fully managed solution that could be quickly deployed with minimal business risk. IFS Managed Cloud was the clear winner as it offered a rapid and secure way for Jacopa to benefit from ERP, with a clear focus on project-centric manufacturing and the service and asset lifecycle.
Alex Lloyd, Managing Director, Jacopa said: “Today’s business environment demands more competitive out-turns for projects, and for the UK’s regulated water companies the drive to deliver more effectively and efficiently is ever more prevalent. It is therefore imperative that the supply chain should align to this challenge with a focus on productivity and skills, which is rightly, associated with innovation and development and much direct operational productivity is built on this.”
“Yet, another potentially more important aspect of productivity improvement is more about the connectivity of one business process with another. Here the opportunity to innovate around enterprise resource planning systems that use workflow templates, connect business information across workflows, have remote input and ready access and use of data for user and management information can all play a part.”
The deal was secured by approved IFS Partner Network services partner and reseller, Anthesis. Anthesis is established as an IFS UK service partner and brings together a specialist implementation team of IFS consultants. The partnership is aimed at delivering added value to new and existing customers in the UK, offering services from design and implementation through to rollout and support.
Paul Massey, Managing Director of IFS Europe West, said: “We are delighted to support approved partners from the IFS Partner Network, such as Anthesis, deliver complete implementation projects in the energy and utilities market where we have a proven track record. Our fully managed ERP solution offers Jacopa an outstanding cloud-based platform that will support its future growth ambitions by driving transparency across its business and providing it with the ability to quickly adapt to change.”
“It’s great to see IFS offering a flexible and cost-effective way for customers to enhance their ERP implementation through the IFS Managed Cloud on Microsoft Azure,” said Steve Guggenheimer, Corporate Vice President of Developer eXperience & Evangelism and Chief Evangelist for Microsoft. “The cloud platform will allow Jacopa to quickly scale up and down, enhancing the agility of IFS Applications when responding to changing business needs.”