1. Do you have an international client base?
Intuit Real Estate Solutions prides itself on being a global provider of software solutions, with many of our customers having multi-country operations. We currently have over 5,000 clients in 40 countries worldwide, a large majority of which are international organisations.

2. What international support do you provide?
Being a global provider, Intuit Real Estate Solutions has multiple international offices, which are located in the main operating areas around the world. Fully staffed support offices exist in the UK, South Africa, Singapore, the USA and Australia. This means that we are able to offer 24-hour support, and provide local business expertise.

3. Does the software support multi-currency functionality?
Our property and asset management system, MRI™, is fully multi-currency compliant.

4. Does it support multi-languages and with what limitations?
Data input screens and system reports can easily be provided in local languages. We currently have clients using our product in 20 different European countries, many of whom have data entry screens, system menus and reports in local languages, to meet the needs of both their staff and clients.

5. Do you support 32 bit characters?
The MRI product incorporates both unicode and double byte technology, and therefore can cope with numerous international alphabet sets. We have successfully installed our product in many countries, and successfully provided output in languages including Russian, Greek and Japanese.

6. To what extent is your software customisable to support local national requirements? (legal, accounting, tax etc.)
We have conducted a full gap analysis of our product for all European countries with respect to legal, taxation and accounting regulations, and as a result we have incorporated new developments into the product to ensure compliance across Europe. In addition, we regularly host workshops with our regional client base to address local business issues.

The MRI product can easily be customised using our unique Application Toolkit. This allows the product to be tailored to meet unique business requirements. Customisations can be easily made, without the need to change core system code, and all customisations are retained upon system upgrade.

7. What are the major challenges in developing international software?
It is vital that our product is flexible enough to handle local legal, accounting & taxation requirements in multiple countries, and can evolve to keep up with changes in these working practices. For this reason, we work alongside our existing client base to explore product enhancements and new developments that are directly related to their regional business issues.

We also regularly undertake regional Gap Analyses and Quality Assurance procedures to ensure that our product continues to meet the need of organisations that operate in many countries. Our Application ToolKit module also allows our clients to personalise the product to their unique business need.

Many of our clients have selected MRI for use in one country or region, and then decided to roll-out the system throughout their entire global organisation. It is therefore vital that we are able to support an international-roll out – for this reason we have implementation, product development, support and administrative staff throughout all of our regional offices. This provides us with local business expertise, and also the ability to manage and support a global client base.

We also must ensure that our product is able to interface with local banking systems & third party software interfaces. We have developed several regional banking interfaces and work with industry bodies and local third-party software suppliers to ensure that MRI can fit effectively into all our international clients’ methods of working.

8. What should a customer be looking for in selecting a system with international functionality?
From a system standpoint, there are several issues which must be considered: The customer must ensure that the software complies with all legal, taxation & accounting regulations within their region; that the system is multicurrency compliant; and that it is flexible enough to accommodate local language capabilities, if required.

Their chosen software must also be robust and comprehensive enough to meet the demands of an international organisation, with multiple offices, and potentially large user numbers. Issues such as flexibility of delivery methods are key. For example, does the provider offer the options of both Windows and Web-based systems, or a combination of the two? Is an ASP (Application Hosting) solution available?

However, it is equally vital that the customer selects a software provider with proven experience in implementing and supporting an international product:

It is imperative that the chosen vendor has a full understanding and knowledge of relevant local business issues, and that their software can handle these scenarios these effectively. We would recommend assessing the vendor’s implementation experience within the appropriate country/region – and for this, suitable client references are vital.

An international organisation, whose offices span several time zones, should also ensure that their chosen software supplier can offer product support during all of their hours of business – for a global company, this may mean around-the-clock support.

The client must also feel confident that the chosen supplier is committed to their region(s), through investment in their software product and organisation, to ensure that the software continues to evolve from both a local and global standpoint.