WDCi Group prepackages integration, Powered by Talend

Talend's OEM program, Powered by Talend, allows vendor to deliver prepackaged integrations for the SME market.

Providing end-to-end solutions

Founded in 2008, the Australia and Malaysia-based WDCi Group specializes in connecting systems, providing end-to-end solutions for identity, integration, data transformation and SOA requirements, both on-premise and on-demand. With a focus on rapid deployment, WDCi uses their extensive experience to deliver right the first time.

WDCi partnered with Talend to develop pre-built integration solutions. These ReadyMade ETL solutions use Talend to deliver rapid, low-cost integration solutions for organizations of all sizes.

Connecting MYOB and Salesforce.com

WDCi's focus is building pre-packaged integration solutions connecting business applications. “We knew this can be difficult because of different needs and business practices, so we were researching common-use cases and methods of digitizing them,” said Deborah Brook, CEO of WDCi. “We originally tackled MYOB, which is a local competitor to QuickBooks and much more prevalent here than it is in the States. The intention was to take a pre-built solution to market in a subscription model at about AU$1,000 each (US$888). Our ReadyMade ETL solution integrates data between Salesforce.com and MYOB, which provides accounting and Point-of- Sale software for small businesses.”

WDCi wanted to offer a solution that could compete with Informatica, which is frequently too expensive for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Australia and the South East Asian market. Prepackaged integrations for this market are increasingly prevalent and in Australia SMEs represent more than 90% of the companies. The path led to open source. The company sifted through 25 tools, narrowed that down to five, and determined that Talend's data integration technology would be the best fit both for their product and their market.

There were a number of reasons for this. “Talend has a very large number of connectors, including a dedicated component that easily integrates Salesforce.com to the rest of our clients' IT systems,” said Deborah Brook. “Customization is minimal, and we can install the tool in as little as 15 minutes depending on complexity.”

WDCi found that another major benefit was the time and monetary savings realized. Without integration between applications, it typically took their customers approximately three minutes to manually replicate a sales order in MYOB. Talend data integration technology automates this manual process and eliminates this step. Data quality is preserved because there is no re-keying of data between applications.

Enhancing training programs

The first ReadyMade ETL customer was Upskilled, an Australian company specializing in innovation in education. Upskilled experts work with a business to identify skills gaps in their work force. They then help design a flexible, innovative training program to address these gaps and train staff with key skills and knowledge. Businesses benefit from having more highly skilled workers and the workers are rewarded with greater job satisfaction as well as nationally accredited qualifications.

Upskilled needed an end-to-end solution-from opportunity detection to invoicing. The company already used MYOB for their accounting system; implementing Salesforce.com gave them visibility into their sales pipeline, but without connectivity to MYOB they had to rekey data and enter invoices manually. They needed to have the two systems integrated in order to see the value of their investment and to eliminate data errors and inconsistencies between the applications.

WCDi's tool proved to be an excellent fit. “WDCi's ReadyMade ETL solution, Powered by Talend, has removed the headache of rekeying data between Salesforce.com and MYOB,” said Varant Bomoushakian, Education Manager at Upskilled. “Now I can focus on my business and not the books.”

Facilitating the accounting package of choice

A second early adopter was Solatube Australia, a specialist in high-performance daylighting systems that use advanced optics to significantly improve the way daylight is harnessed.

Solatube's Financial Controller needed an integrated sales automation and accounting tool for their dealerships throughout Australia. The accounting package of choice for many of these dealerships is MYOB-the most prevalent on-premise accounting package for SMEs in Australia. Solatube also wanted to implement Salesforce.com to provide sales automation across their dealerships with visibility back to Solatube Australia, but realized that there are limited options for cost-effectively connecting MYOB and Salesforce.com.

Here again, ReadyMade ETL, Powered by Talend, was the right fit. “Time is money for an SME,” said Deborah Brook. “Our customers are saving approximately 5 minutes per invoice with our ReadyMade ETL solution and over time, that's significant. It also makes the office manager's job much easier.”

Additional projects in the pipeline

“This is just one of many uses we see for Talend's data integration technology,” added Deborah Brook. “A second project on our roadmap is to develop prepackaged integration between Business Catalyst and MYOB, followed by integration between SugarCRM and MYOB, both built on a Talend core. And of course, we also use Talend's technology in our consulting work.”