Tom Paine
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Most tech professionals in the area know that enterprise software giant SAP has its headquarters for the Americas, and well over 2,000 employees, in Newtown Square. And in May of next year it will be the home base for SAP's sole CEO, although the company remains based in Germany.
But less are aware that another important, though smaller Tier II ERP provider, Epicor, has its headquarters for its Americas ERP business in Bucks County. And it is moving from Yardley to Bensalem and holding an open house tomorrow.
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| Epicor EVP Donna Troy |
Epicor's presence in the area dates back to
Activant Solutions' 2005 acquisition of Yardley-based Prophet 21 for $215 million.
Activant was acquired by private equity firm Apax Partners in 2011, which at the same time also acquired Epicor and merged the two under the Epicor name. The total value of the two deals was about $2 billion, and Epicor currently has annual revenues in the $1 billion range. Epicor says its Bensalem location serves as its headquarters for its ERP business in the Americas, and it currently has about 200 employees there. Worldwide corporate headquarters are in California. Donna Troy, who had previous experience with Dell, SAP, McAfee and IBM, joined Epicor earlier this year as executive vice president and general manager for ERP Americas.
Epicor Director of Continuous Improvement Stuart Maxel, who coordinated the move, said in a phone interview with Philly Tech News that Epicor's key objectives here are to continue the migration of products to the Cloud (Epicor was traditionally on-premise, but now has a mix of on-premise and Software as a Service - SaaS), moving up from serving smaller and medium-sized enterprises to competing for more accounts in larger enterprises, and enhancing its vertical & niche offerings. Epicor's traditional core strengths have been in retail, distribution, and manufacturing.
Although Maxel couldn't talk specific numbers, he said part of the reason for the move
was to allow for expansion, and that is definitely in the plans. I mentioned that Epicor
has not been very visible on the Philly Tech Scene during the time I've covered it,
and he said increasing that was one of its goals.
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| Epicor's new Bensalem facility |
The Yardley facility dated back to the Prophet 21 days (Epicor still uses the Prophet 21
name for some offerings). In the Bensalem facility at the LEED certified Horizon Corporate Center, Epicor is leasing 43,000 square feet on the second floor. Bensalem Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo, local representative Gene DiGirolamo, and state senator Tommy Tomlinson are expected to attend the open house today.
