IQMS User Group Meeting - Introductions

The Wednesday morning sessions started out extremely well, the first session being the obligatory introductions. Liz Alfen, Danielle Fresca, Glenn Nowak, and Diane Ramaglia all had a chance to address the 187 attendees at this year's conference at the Las Vegas Hilton.

There were some noteworthy mentions, one of which will truly help our training efforts at Pano Cap Canada; namely, the introduction in early 2007 of self-help audio/visual training materials. These will be available from the IQMS web site (or the FTP site) and can be located on the customer's network to help in training users. We got to see one of these - a navigational training guide which provided some excellent suggestions for using pick lists and propagating search scopes.

A new marketing campaign was illustrated by Danielle Fresca. Unfortunately, the print media focus on advertising doesn't seem to have been noticed by the attendees yet.

Personally, I think IQMS needs to be far more concerned with the Internet and with Web 2.0 social networking for marketing its products. Where are the corporate IQMS blogs? Where are users of IQMS products blogging about their experiences? Try out Technorati or Google Blog Search, enter IQMS, and you will find very little. This absence of a presence in the new web needs to be addressed - fast!

Sales always has good news to share. Glenn Nowak indicated that growth has been good with 100% growth in warehouse management systems, and 20% growth in CRM sales. In addition, with the introduction of a wireless real-time manufacturing solution, sales in that arena are expected to do very well. IQMS has also been nurturing vendor partnerships, notably with Dell, CorVu, and eSP (eBusiness Solution Pros, Inc.).

One comment which stood out for me in this session was the decision to go with a "single source, single database solution vs best of breed." This has been largely responsible for IQMS success in the marketplace, that plus the attention the company pays to its customers and to hiring the right people.

If the introductions are any indication, the conference will be a smash hit!