Positive summary of Hannover Trade Fair 2007

Karlsruhe, June 06, 2007 - 241,102 visitors, 16% more than last year, made their way to Hannover to the world-wide most important technology event, the Hannover Trade Industry. The atmosphere in the German production industry has never been as good. Many companies invest in new machines or business software, thanks to full order books and stable business activity. For ABAS the Hannover Trade Fair is an ideal platform to approach customers and prospective customers. Many users of the abas Business Software are represented by their own trade fair stands. Not only the trade fair visitors have informed themselves about abas ERP and eBusiness, but many decision makers of the exhibiting companies also showed a great interest.

Cooperative software development
"Cooperation is the central keyword of our company philosophy. Our structures which are based on partnerships with customers, sales and distribution, employees and software cooperation partners have proven themselves. At the Hannover Trade Fair Industry 2007 we also had the opportunity to directly approach potential customers. During these conversations we found out about innovations which will have to be represented in our software in the future. If potential customers were interested, only a few stands away they could exchange information with companies which already have experience with our software. Many abas users were present with a trade fair stand at the trade fair and, therefore, they were our best advertising. The Hannover Trade Fair claims to represent the entire industrial process chain. Our software has been doing this for over 20 years and we also operate more and more internationally. The exhibitors from abroad made up about 47% in Hannover. This was also a very interesting aspect for our company. The experience we already have with international projects in the abas group is our advantage over other ERP providers," remarks Werner Strub, CEO of ABAS Software AG, about the trade fair 2007.

"Innovations have to be implementable"
Volker Schnittler of the trade association software of the VDMA (German association for mechanical engineering and plant construction) sees a possibility to promote innovations in Germany with MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems): "The topic of MES has reached mechanical engineering. To a great extent I am positively surprised about the great interest that was shown in the tours provided by VDMA at the Hannover Trade Fair. At present, we register an increasingly vertical range of production in many businesses in Germany. This has several reasons. On the one hand, the traffic volume in Germany is increasing. Thus, a "Just in Time" production is becoming more difficult. The protection of plagiarsm plays an important role, the more a company produces, the more secure the know-how. In hard times there are more options to react to changed market demands if the vertical range of productions is large and last but not least with outsourcing of production processes there is often an increased and above all more expensive management and coordination effort. A process-oriented operating production management system, such as the abas Business Software, can provide the decisive support. At present, we are very strong in Germany in terms of technology and also organizational, this shows the ongoing success of our member companies, despite increasing energy prices and a weak dollar. We want to remain like this in the future."

Many top-class first contacts
"If someone was interested in an ERP solution at the Hannover Trade Fair, the prospective customer visited hall 17," observed Bernhard Schmid, co-exhibitor at the abas trade fair stand and manager of the abas partner abas Informationssysteme GmbH. He continues: "The open and appealing abas trade fair stand was located strategically between the stand of the trade association software of the VDMA and other well-known ERP providers, so that visitors inevitably had to walk by. The contacts at the stands of the exhibiting companies were as interesting as the talks at the trade fair stand. "We have far-ranging innovations in the current version of the abas Business Software, which are very positively accepted by the market. This resulted in many top-class first contacts which we wouldn't have had if we hadn't been at the Hannover Trade Fair."

Initiative pays off
This opinion is shared by Mario Raatz, manager of the ABAS Projektierung Köln and co-exhibitor at the abas trade fair stand: "At the Hannover Trade Fair we were able to take the initiative and actively approach our prospective customers. Among the exhibitors we often meet conversational partners from the management. Many companies have precise investment intentions."

The "best" of all Hannover Trade Fairs
For Rober Müller of the abas partner BMI Consulting, also a co-exhibitor at the abas trade fair stand, it was the best Hannover Trade Fair so far: "We had many top-class contacts and were able to already agree on dates to do presentations on-site for prospective customers. We are very thrilled by the Hannover Trade Fair 2007."

Optimism prevails
Silvia Handrick of the abas software partner alltrotec remembers the Hannover Trade Fair 2007 very well: "Optimism and great openness for changes could be detected in all our talks with prospective customers and customers. Due to the good order situation, many companies are thinking about a new organization of their processes along the value added chain. With the abas Business Software, we here provide customized solutions."

Different visitors than at CeBIT
"Each exhibitor is a potential prospective customer," says Harald Scheuls, manager of the abas software partner SteinhilberSchwehr GmbH about the trade fair. For the third time already the SteinhilberSchwehr group was present in Hannover with its own stand. Harald Scheuls continues: "We had many positive discussions and were able to make numerous contacts. In Hannover we are able to reach different contact persons than at CeBIT. Construction, development and management of producing companies were visiting the trade fair or can be found as exhibitors."

More than 1,900 customers have opted for ABAS as their IT specialist and for the integrated standard abas business software which has become one of the most successful ERP programs on the international market during the past years.

Leading companies from various industries with 10 to over 1000 employees are included on the ABAS customer list. This list consists of names such as: Würth Elektronik, Mafell, Robbe, Lufthansa LEOS or Homa Pumpenfabrik.

ABAS Software AG has established a professional partner network consisting of more than 550 IT organisational and application consultants. The ABAS sales partners tend to the customers and provide a range of support services covering implementation, hardware and network support, customization and helpdesk. About 50 abas Distribution Partners world-wide ensure that there is a short reaction time and high service quality. The partner network continually grows.

ABAS Software AG
Suedendstrasse 42
76135 Karlsruhe / GERMANY
Tel.: +49 721 967 23 0
info@abas.de
www.abas.de

This release was published on openPR.