My Office Apps

My Office Apps (MOA) CTO and Co- Founder Mehrdad Komeili knows firsthand the challenges small- to medium-sized manufacturers face when choosing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.

In his former role as CIO for a company with locations in North America and overseas, Komeili was tasked with finding an ERP software at a time – the early 1990s – when there were fewer choices for such systems. After choosing and installing an ERP system, Komeili found that his company needed to modify the system to meet its needs. After looking into it, Komeili realized how cumbersome and costly it was to customize and implement the ERP systems that were available. Since then, Komeili felt that there had to be a better way and he has been designing and developing his own ERP solutions ever since.

But Komeili was not just one of those IT folks who simply wrote code. He was always interested in helping automate different department and functionalities. His passion was and still is solving problems and making a user interface that is robust and easy to use. “I was not a CIO who just sat in my office or in the board room,” he says. “I was talking to our shipping manager, our purchasing manager and others to find out what would make their job easier and faster.”

Streamlining Operations
Shortly after his former company was acquired, Komeili co-founded MOA in 2014 with his wife Mariam. Mariam Komeili, MOA’s CEO, has more than 25 years of business development, marketing and sales experience for companies in the technology, consumer electronics and healthcare industries.

A year later, they launched their flagship software product named Kechie. Kechie is a cloud-based software-as-a-service ERP solution designed to be responsive to its users’ needs. Kechie ERP helps small- to medium-sized companies streamline their businesses by automating and synchronizing inventory management, manufacturing, procurement, orders and returns, customer relationship management, logistics, supply chain management and warehouse management. The ERP is offered on a subscription basis.

MOA speaks with its clients prior to implementation to learn their specific needs. Kechie ERP is then adapted with templates and forms specific to the client’s operations. “Our promise is that our software will adapt to your business and business processes, not the other way around,” Mariam Komeili says.

The Kechie platform typically takes six weeks or less to put into place which can be quite faster than other solutions due its inherent modern design. The system‘s interface is similar across each of its modules and includes training videos and a help desk. “We try to keep it very easy to use,” Mehrdad Komeili says.

Target Markets
Kechie ERP can meet the needs of a variety of manufacturing and distribution companies. “We have customers across different industries such as food and beverage, consumer electronics and general manufacturing,” Mariam Komeili says.

The company targets customers who either do not presently have ERP systems as well as clients who have outgrown or are dissatisfied with other cloud-based or on-premises ERP platforms. “Other solutions out there cost four times what we do, are not as customizable and are more difficult to implement,” Mariam Komeili says.

Kechie ERP users see significant results after using the platform. Due to the easy scalability of the platform, MOA’s beta test customer was able to increase their revenue more than 30 times over to a seven figure level within a short 18 month period. “If you don’t have the right tool, you’ll be in trouble if you try to grow your business that fast,” MOA Vice President of Marketing Doug Finke says. “Because this company installed Kechie ERP in the early part of their growth, they were able to automate their business processes very easily.”

Mariam Komeili credits Kechie ERP’s success to the user-friendly, yet scalable interface and also to MOA’s staff. “Our employees and the people we work with are our greatest asset,” she says. “We have a great research and development and support staff that help design the best solution and support our customers.”

A Worry-Free Solution
MOA continues to improve Kechie ERP. In February 2018, the company added a financial management module to the platform that gives it general ledger as well as accounts payable, accounts receivable, credit and collections, financial reporting and other capabilities.

“By providing these new financial modules in addition to the previous inventory, manufacturing, supply chain and sales modules, our customers will have an even better integrated platform for more efficiently managing their business,” the company says.

Future additions to the platform will likely include enhanced supply tracking capabilities, as well as modifications that would allow it to be used in cell-based manufacturing operations.

“We are trying to develop something for our customers that just works and that doesn’t consume a lot of their time, additional staffing, equipment or a server room,” Finke says. “Our goal is to provide our customers with a fully integrated seamless ERP platform that enables them to focus on their core operations and become even more successful.”