The Challenge
To facilitate reporting capabilities, and summarise expenses for accurate quoting and allocation of resources, Socabelec East Africa realized that its decentralised system was not consolidating data to ensure accurate planning and project management.
Reporting was one of the biggest challenges. "The headquarters required accurate data that reflected the work we were doing but we were unable to supply it in real time. Often we were only able to identify problem areas when we discovered them at the end of the financial year. This had a direct negative effect on our bottom line," says Olivier Lauvaux, managing director for Socabelec East Africa.
Why Epicor and MFI
"On the surface it may appear that all the big ERP players are similar but there are definitely key differentiators when it comes to Epicor and their local partner MFI," explains Lauvaux. "Scalability, flexibility and a detailed understanding of our business is paramount. Then, how the implementation is carried out, makes or breaks the project."
Socabelec East Africa looked at leading ERP providers and evaluated them according to the following stringent criteria:
- Functionality-functionality offered by each ERP provider according to Socabelec East Africa business process requirements.
- Flexibility and product customization-is the system flexible and scalable so that it can be customized to suit business processes.
- Live site visit-a site inspection at a customer with a live system to get feedback on user experience and see the product in action.
- Local support and implementation team-the service and capabilities of the service provider implementing the system is critical to the system's success.
"Gaining an intricate understanding of Socabelec's business enabled our team to tailor a solution that provides detailed insight into every aspect of their business to optimize performance and profitability," says Aadil Tharani, managing director, MFI Consulting & Technology Limited.
The Implementation
MFI's professional service and comprehensive understanding of the business was the precursor to the success of the project. There were no surprises because thorough planning was carried out and a systematic implementation ended with a full month of intricate testing to ensure that all contingencies were covered.
"MFI's adopted best practice methodology to ensure that the implementation went ahead smoothly. The process began with the installation of the system and then progressed to the customization process. By the time we started with training, our team understood the flow of data and were comfortable with the navigation," says Lauvaux. Epicor ERP (now known as Kinetic) is used by all departments of Socabelec East Africa.
Success and Profitability
Epicor ERP provides real-time data on: projects costs; AR aging; billing, booking and backlog; and stock management. This directly enables management to take corrective action on pricing and project management.
"We are now able to carry out detailed reporting whenever needed using real-time data, safe in the knowledge that it's accurate and up to the minute. This has a direct positive effect on our bottom line because accurate quoting and allocation of resources means that nothing slips through the cracks," says Lauvaux. "In the past we were only able to identify losses at the end of the financial year which meant that a significant amount of time would pass before we could remedy it. We have also learned new things about our profitability which previously were unknown. Now we have a handle on all aspects to maximize our resources, become more competitive, and help the business grow well into the future."