GeneXus in St. Louis, with Sergio Prusky

 What does Systems Reality Group do?
The company’s main business is not to merely sell GeneXus, but to sell the GeneXus systems designed for the clothing manufacturing industry (Knowledge Base).
Our proposal includes GeneXus because we are selling the knowledge base.

What is the general business design of the company?
Today we are eleven; my partner, a telemarketer, myself, and eight other team members; six of whom are Uruguayans, and two Americans.
We really needed people who knew GeneXus. We really cannot wait for people to become trained and experienced. In order to start at a ‘go’ position we contracted Uruguayan people that we knew had substantial experience with the tool.

How did you start?
We had a six-month project at a company, which has been a long time GeneXus client, called CPI, and they are still one of our main clients. From there other projects have presented themselves. In each instance our development has been 100% in GeneXus. Our advantage is that we can make systems faster than our competitors, at a lower price, and are more flexible in regards to time and what the end-users want/need.

What does the primary knowledge base do?
It focuses on planning the production, running the cost analysis, purchase orders, stock, inventory management, and a shipping piece. In the United States, there is an exchange of electronic data (EDI) between enterprises. Clients send a purchase order electronically which the system manages automatically. The larger client orders arrive automatically, and when the goods are shipped, the invoice is sent electronically, in the same manner in which the product is shipped.

How is the payment handled?
It depends on the company. The format that could replace EDI would be XML. In fact, we look for this to happen in the next two or three years time.
In what ways has this implementation reduced the cost for the clients?
Initially, if a purchase order comes electronically, nobody has to manually enter it. It has also lowered the cost in logistics because the system establishes how to store and reference warehoused inventory items. The client knows what he has and where it is, and when searching orders he does it only once because of the implemented batch, which puts all the orders together, allowing the product to be picked up, then segregated according to orders. In addition, the system automatically selects, according to the order weight, whether it should be sent via UPS or through another company.

What is a GeneXus user in the United States like?
In the United States, GeneXus users are pioneers. In Uruguay, many enterprises have already implemented it. We have to find the profile of the consumer that wants to innovate, people willing to take risks in order to get extraordinary results.

What companies use GeneXus?
One large user, Kellwood, is a large corporation that sells US$ 2.000 million a year. Southwestern Bell is another large company here in St. Louis, as well as the Budweiser factory on a more departmental level. We also have a project with a dental insurance company, Delta Dental. One of our other clients, which we have done projects for is called Miss Elaine. It is an enterprise that manufactures nightgowns and pajamas for women. SRG developed a knowledge base for them, a software package for enterprises that manufacture clothes, and currently, we are working on selling that package to other corporations.

How do you commercialize the product?
Today, we sell the whole knowledge base, as it’s own product. We have to commercialize it this way because we are a small enterprise –against many giant competitors- and we have to give the client security. Meaning, he must feel that he does not depend on us to maintain that system, and that he can modify the knowledge base on his own.
The package can also be sold to other enterprises that work with clothes or furniture because the production processes are very similar. As a matter of fact, we are now working with an enterprise that manufactures ties.

What is the strategy that you use in order to sell GeneXus?
We use direct marketing; or telemarketing.
We purchased a catalog with 5,000 enterprises that manufacture clothes in the United States and we are calling them one by one; we often go on-site to meet with them and discuss the benefits of GeneXus, as well as what the product/knowledge base can do for them.