Crystal Jade, a prominent Singapore-based restaurant chain, needed to replace disparate legacy systems requiring multiple data entries and manual processes. Epicor Kinetic delivered autonomy for individual restaurants while maintaining central control over master data. It also provided a foundation for enhanced insights the company can use to fuel future growth.
Founded in 1991, Crystal Jade is a Michelin-starred culinary group that offers specialty dining concepts—ranging from fine dining and casual dining restaurants, to specialty bakeries. One of the most prominent restaurant chains in Asia Pacific, the Singapore-based group owns and operates more than 120 outlets in 30 major cities across the region.
Prior to implementation of the Epicor ERP (now known as Kinetic) solution, billing, inventory, and accounting activities were all running on separate systems. With so many disparate systems and no interconnectivity across platforms, a single transaction required multiple manual data entries in multiple systems. It was a tedious and time-consuming process. Every data entry had to be checked and then double-checked for accuracy.
With this chaotic structure, it meant that scalability was not possible—a particular concern when the company was getting primed for growth. This created a serious challenge for the company. Without real-time financial and operational visibility into the business, it was difficult for senior management to ensure the right decisions were made.
Crystal Jade needed a scalable enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that would deliver the benefits of centralized inventory control while still providing autonomy to individual restaurant managers
“We looked at a number of potential solutions, and Epicor ERP [Kinetic] really stood out in terms of fitting our business requirements,” said Hoe Ziqian, senior regional manager for finance and information systems at Crystal Jade. “A critical consideration for us was that Epicor has extensive experience facilitating the digital transformation of back-end operations in our specific business sector—the food and beverage vertical.”
Achieving acceptance and buy-in from end users—the restaurant management and operations teams based in each restaurant—would be vital to the success of the project. Mr. Hoe explained, “We undertook a series of roadshows—giving internal operations
personnel an opportunity to see how the Epicor platform would enable everyone to work more cohesively and effectively. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. They quickly realized that Epicor ERP [Kinetic] was both easy to use and could be implemented with minimal disruption.”
“During the implementation process, the customer-centric approach from Epicor was outstanding—even the smallest end-user request was considered,” added Mr. Hoe.
Providing a strong foundation for multidimensional planning, reporting, and analysis, Epicor ERP has already delivered some significant gains for Crystal Jade. Eliminating the need to enter the same data multiple times has boosted data accuracy and enabled improved forecasting while delivering a 360-degree view of the business.
“Epicor ERP [Kinetic] has dramatically reduced information lead times and improved data availability and accuracy. For example, we are now able to derive consolidated financials and granular reporting across multiple stores or legal entities much more quickly. As a consequence, our month-end closing has reduced from 12 to 7 working days,” explained Mr. Hoe.
“It would be difficult for us to achieve our growth plans without using Epicor ERP [Kinetic] to drive supply chain management and operational control,” Mr. Hoe concluded.
