Gordon Fleming is responsible for leading the company’s global marketing organization, defining its key market strategy and developing its strategic vertical roadmaps.

Fleming joined QAD in 1995 and was responsible for QAD operations in Australia and New Zealand. In addition to enterprise resource planning software, his previous experience includes work in the corporate finance sector at Schroders plc and Barclays Group plc in the United Kingdom.

With a background in electronics telecommunications, Fleming also has worked in commissioning and manufacturing roles for the defense and communications sectors.

In the following interview, Gordon Fleming, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of QAD Inc. (NASDAQ: QADA, QADB) discusses with Rake Narang, editor-in-chief of Network Products Guide, SaaS ERP and Premise ERP and how his company stays at the forefront of technology and innovation.

Rake Narang: How is SaaS ERP different from an On Premise ERP solution?

Gordon Fleming: SaaS ERP, sometimes called Cloud ERP, can reduce a customer’s financial uncertainty and internal information technology (IT) risk sometimes associated with delivery, maintenance and upgrades of mission-critical on premise ERP.

QAD’s solution is called QAD On Demand. QAD hosts the applications, and provide all of the support and system management on a customer’s behalf. Moreover, our customers can add sites quickly and cost-efficiently as they aren’t required to buy and train on new machines and systems. They also benefit from the strength and security of QAD’s world-class data center that is SAS 70 Type II compliant, providing peace of mind and predictable outcomes.

Rake Narang: QAD is the only ERP vendor providing full strength ERP both on premise and on demand, or as a blended deployment of the two models. How does this affect QAD’s competitive stature?

Gordon Fleming: As companies continue to embrace cloud applications and cloud deployment strategies, the need to port their ERP systems from an on premise to an on demand environment quickly and without risk, will become increasingly important and a competitive differentiator in choosing an ERP provider. QAD is pleased to be the only company, we believe, to deliver both deployment independence and deployment portability.

QAD Enterprise Applications’ scalability allows companies with as few as five users and as many as thousands to use the same applications and levels the playing field for local companies to operate the same as global organizations.

Rake Narang: QAD has been in business for 31 years. How does it stay at the forefront of technology and innovation for its customers’ and its business viability?

Gordon Fleming: QAD attributes its success to its absolute commitment to its customers. With above average investment in R&D and customer-driven development, we can help our customers to achieve our long-range vision for manufacturing called the Effective Enterprise. As an Effective Enterprise, our customers’ business systems and processes are completely aligned with their business goals and strategies, enabling them to operate at peak efficiency.

We also focus on developing ERP solutions exclusively for manufacturing within the niche industry sectors of automotive, industrial products, high tech/electronics, life sciences, consumer packaged goods and food and beverage, enabling us to provide maximum value to our customers and leverage economies of scale.

Overall, QAD maintains its viability and technological innovation by working alongside customers, delivering the right products at the right time that achieve our customers’ goals.

Company: QAD Inc
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100 Innovation Place,
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