News 2012

“Seeing is Believing” with new Quintiq Business Director

Melbourne, Australia, December 18, 2012

Berend Berendsen appointed as Business Director of Australia and New Zealand

Quintiq, a global leader in Advanced Planning and Scheduling solutions, announced today that Mr. Berend Berendsen has been appointed as a Business Director for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). Berend comes to the ANZ business unit with a wealth of optimization skills and extensive managerial experience and will have responsibility for presales in the region. He joins Paul Shepherd and Paul Goddon as joint Business Directors and will commence the new position in January 2013.

Prior to this new appointment, Berend held various high-level positions within Quintiq including the Quintiq Global Director of Customer Solutions based in Malaysia and the Director of Quintiq’s South East Asia business unit. With a graduate qualification in Artificial Intelligence and years of experience as a consultant for Capgemini, Berend is an expert in workforce and supply chain planning and optimization. He has worked on projects all over the world in Metals and Manufacturing, Aviation, FMCG and Telecommunications.

“I’m very excited to help continue the growth and success of Quintiq in this region and lead the team to help prospective customers see the benefits of Quintiq software and our world class optimization solutions. Our goal is to provide that ‘Seeing is Believing’ moment for prospects where they can identify their ‘pain’ points being resolved with our software,” said Berend.

Berend Berendsen

In his previous role as Global Director of Customer Solutions, Berend was involved with the implementations of a number of solutions in Australia and New Zealand, and so he is familiar with the local market. Berend provided insight into the challenge ahead, stating, “The market in Australia and New Zealand has reached a certain level of maturity where many companies have gone through the phase of implementing ERP systems and are now looking for that extra 5% to optimize their supply chain, production or workforce though technology. That’s where it gets really interesting! Quintiq’s challenge is to demonstrate how that can be achieved through optimization software.”

Berend explains, though, that optimization is not the only answer. “There are a lot of myths out there about what optimization does and doesn't do. It will be challenging to show customers and prospects that having the right process and support is often more important than having any optimization in place. Explaining our best practices will be a focus point for the team going forward.”

Paul Shepherd, fellow Quintiq ANZ Business Director responsible for sales states, “Quintiq’s presales process is a critical component of our sales cycle. By adding Berend to the executive team, our region is getting the benefits of his broad technical skill base, combined with his leadership experience achieved through the implementation of many successful global solutions. We are looking forward to the application of Berend’s expertise to ensure our solutions thoroughly reflect customer requirements during the engagement process.”

About Quintiq

Quintiq’s Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) software enables companies to create business value by visualising and optimising their operational processes. Quintiq software is capable of generating the best possible planning solution to suit any business model and solve any planning puzzle, even in the most complex and dynamic of business environments.

Established in 1997 and growing rapidly, Quintiq has a global presence with dual headquarters in the Netherlands and the USA, a global development centre in Malaysia, and other offices around the world. Quintiq's APS software is in use at over 500 locations in 78 countries.

For more information, visit www.quintiq.com or follow @Quintiq on Twitter.