Installing a finance system is no small undertaking at the best of times but harsh economic conditions can make it seem a lot more risky and a lot less appealing. So FSN writer Lesley Meall talks to organisations that have recently decided to introduce new accounting or enterprise resource planning systems and finds out what drove them to it.
Hassan’s Optician Company, a wholesale and retail chain in Kuwait, recently decided to install an Infor ERP LN, to help ‘optimise resources and reduce costs’ in preparation for ‘an aggressive five year expansion plan’. The developer of fluid systems, Swagelok, is ‘future-proofing’ its business systems by integrating and replacing its finance, human resources, supply chain, manufacturing and distribution systems, with an ERP from SAP. The United States Marine Corps is implementing an integrated suite from Oracle to ‘improve service support to operational forces’ by ‘modernising its IT and logistics processes’.
They are not alone. The ViON Corporation, a US manufacturer of storage and server solutions recently decided to replace a mix of disconnected systems with a centralised and integrated ERP from Epicor. Like many first time users of ERP systems, ViON wants to automate its labour-intensive back-office processes. ‘We rely on spreadsheets to run our business,’ says Jerome Nowosatko, the V-Star program manager at ViON, but this has led to the sort data duplication and discrepancies that are almost inevitable when numerous employees maintain numerous spreadsheets.
‘There was little communication of data between departments and manual tracking was time-consuming, so we knew we had to do something different,’ says Nowosatko, but it didn’t want an ERP solution that would be difficult to maintain or modify. ‘We wanted a forward-thinking architecture so we wouldn’t outgrow the software, or become disappointed with it in a couple of years,’ he explains, so it had to be flexible enough to grow with the company. Not being able to do this is the reason why many organisations are now replacing one ERP with another.
Going for growth
Take Impey. Earlier this year, the British specialist in easy access showers, decided to replace the integrated finance, customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence system it had in place, with a new Access Dimensions ERP, and the GoldMine CRM system from FrontRange Solutions. ‘This will give us more sophisticated management of customers and opportunities, and the ability to better interrogate data,’ explains Lynne Landais, internal sales manager at Impey – unlike the old system, which could no longer support the company as it grew.
‘We were looking for a system that would address how the company operates today and was also flexible enough to facilitate our predicted growth for at least the next five years,’ says Landais, but Impey wanted more than it could get from a standard off-the-shelf product or vendor. ‘Access offered us special customisation for our pricing requirements and integration with our distributors TNT,’ she says, and among the ERP providers Impey considered, it seemed like the best cultural fit. ‘They had the right solution and they had people who made us want to work with them,’ she says.
The deciding to invest in the ERP ParkVision was less of a leap of faith for Darwin (North West), a buyer and operator of holiday parks. Based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, ParkVision was developed by Quirius UK specifically for holiday parks, and when Darwin recently acquired three (from Talacre Beach Caravan Sales Group), it was already in use. At this stage, Darwin could have moved the new parks across to the business system it uses at its other sites; instead, it is doing the opposite, and it also has plans to use ParkVision as it acquires more parks in the future.
‘We selected the ParkVision system because of the positive experience we have had at Talacre Beach,’ explains Claire Lloyd, account supervisor with Darwin. ‘The system has a proven track record of providing an effective solution to our core business needs and requirements,’ she reports, and meeting its more unusual needs. ‘It has the functionality to manage all aspects of our park operations and it fully integrates all aspects of our operations,’ adds Lloyd, as it brings together finance and accounting, sales, marketing, reservations and park management.
With ParkVision in place, Darwin can launch marketing campaigns, streamline sales processes, take and manage online bookings and maintain high standards of customer satisfaction, by ensuring that everything operates smoothly and efficiently from the initial booking through to the final check out. ‘One of the biggest benefits is ParkVision’s flexibility to adapt to our specific business requirements, in order to drive efficiency and cost savings throughout,’ says Lloyd, ‘enabling Darwin to optimise and enhance its business performance.’
Bending it like Beckham
Flexibility was also a major factor when Premier League football club Manchester City decided implement the Agresso Business World ERP from Unit 4. ‘The club is going through a lot of change,’ says Andrew Widdowson, head of finance at Manchester City. ‘We are experiencing rapid growth, and we needed a flexible system that can mirror our constantly changing structure and requirements,’ he add, ‘and Agresso is a functionally rich and highly configurable system that will generate the accurate and comprehensive financial and wider management information we need.’
The club wants its business and finance systems to be the same Premier League standard as its players, without spending the same amount of money on them. ‘Like any commercial enterprise, the club is always looking for ways to drive greater efficiency and boost financial performance and profitability,’ says Widdowson, and because Agresso users can easily adapt the system to meet their changing needs, he adds: ‘We can make any necessary changes to the system ourselves, even after implementation, without the need for costly external consultants.’
So although ERP systems aren’t exactly leaping off the shelves and selling themselves at the moment, the market has not entirely stagnated. Plenty of organisations may have battened down the hatches and put the stops on major information technology investments (unless they can be financed via subscription or some sort of instalment plan), but there are still organisations that are growing and changing so significantly that they are prepared to spend money on ERPs that are flexible enough to make the journey with them – and vendors are more than happy to provide them.
