CitiXsys A/NZ senior vice-president, Paula Da Silva
CitiXsys, provider of the omni-channel retail solution, iVend Retail, is accelerating its expansion in the A/NZ market. The move comes off the back of a $US25 million capital the company raised last year.
CitiXsys, in collaboration with its current partners, is focusing heavily on the opportunity to help retailers in A/NZ to improve shopping experiences both in-store and online through its iVend Retail management software offering.
The company entered the Australian market 10 years ago as an SAP Business One partner, selling its iVend Retail solution as an add-on to SAP’s retail offering.
Three years ago, having found success as a full omni channel solution vendor in the US, Latin America, South East Asia and Europe, Middle East and Africa, the company decided to become enterprise resource planning (ERP) agnostic and sell its own end-to-end omni channel offering to A/NZ retailers, and started building its local channel partners network.
CitiXsys A/NZ senior vice-president, Paula Da Silva, told ARN that going forward, it is increasing its operations in the Asia-Pacific region, and A/NZ has become a priority market. As such, she claimed it is focusing on growing its partner network and customer base in the region.
“When we went to market in the early days, we were just an SAP partner developing software, but it was geared towards SAP’s ERP suite of applications. So three years ago, we wanted to expand and open up our market by decoupling the solution to work with any ERP solution.
“So, in building on that growth, this year was all about focusing on the Australian market specifically and building the local team. Over the past few months, I’ve hired a marketing manager, channel sales manager, and a consulting director,” she said.
“The objective was to build our market share, and for that to happen, we need new partners. We’re in the beginning phases of bringing on board new partners.”
Da Silva claimed it has got a few partners outside the SAP community but it is looking to add on four or five more to the banner. She said the company has some presence in Melbourne and Brisbane and is looking for partners that can extend its reach across Sydney and the West Coast of Australia.
“Because our history has been working with partners where their primary objective has been to lead a sales process with a strong ERP message, we’ve done a complete 360 and the type of company that we’re looking for now is one with strong experience working specifically with retailers.
“A systems integrator that perhaps specialises in bringing to the retailer a complete solution based on different applications,” Da Silva said.
Going forward, she said the company will continue to build on its omni channel experience by revamping its solution. This is due for release in mid-2016. She also indicated that the company is on an acquisition route and will be providing more information about this acquisition early next year.
“There will be a brand new user interface, a new technology set, a rewritten backbone – basically a solution that can run on any database or any platform. With the acquisition, we believe it will put us as a leader in this retail space,” she added.
