Business systems provider Interactive Products has announced it will be rebranding itself as ECI2, the European division of its US parent company. And this Autumn, it’s set to launch a web-based service that offers smaller dealers a user-friendly version of its flagship Progress system.
Managing Director, Ron Wotherspoon, believes that the new system will help dealers trying to grow into the middle end of the market. He said: “There’s a lot of struggling, lifestyle businesses which can’t compete with the resources of the bigger dealers. Managed Progress is a tool to help them grow their business without having to employ extra staff.
“It’s able to give the customer the same experience and service you would expect from the best corporate. A dealer can retain its own identity, but use the stock of the wholesaler instead of its own,” he added. Significantly, it also would allow national partnerships to be developed between small dealers.
For Wotherspoon, the move from IP to ECI2 has been a bittersweet change of ownership and strategy - but one that had to be made, and one he believes will lead to high volume sales in 2007.
He said: “While it is sad that we see the end of a distinguished name in the trade, its traditions will continue in the new guise of ECI2.”