Hirt & Carter, the design and production house, is implementing an e-commerce strategy that will allow its customers to integrate further with its business. It is contracting with Resolution Software, a company in the MB Worksoft group and South Africa`s largest implementer of Great Plains financial software, to help fulfil this goal.
Resolution Software, in turn, is implementing eEnterprise from Great Plains, which builds on Hirt & Carter`s existing Great Plains investment. Hirt & Carter and Resolution have partnered on Great Plains since 1997; the current initiative is centred on Durban, and will ultimately be rolled out to Johannesburg and Cape Town.
With annual turnover of around R200 million, 11 divisions and more than 800 clients, Hirt & Carter is the only company in South Africa to provide a comprehensive range of production services for the pre-press systems, process and printing needs of advertising agencies, retail chains, publishers and corporations.
"Unlike most other companies which are using e-commerce solely as a selling and/or buying mechanism, we will also use the technology to improve our service level by giving customers the ability to track the progress of their orders online in real-time," says group financial director Mark Basel. "We expect to offer this feature and benefit to customers by the end of the year."
This is achieved through integrating eEnterprise with the existing Great Plains implementation. Clients will be able to interrogate the Great Plains server via eEnterprise in a secure, fully integrated environment. "Instead of phoning to inquire about a job, a customer will be able to track exactly at what stage of the process the job is at and when delivery can be expected. They will also be able to check how much they owe us, or in the case of suppliers, how much we owe them. We believe this increased online service will increase our service levels and hence positively effect growth potential, sales volumes and turnover," says Basel.
E-commerce will also allow customers to buy their Apple Macintosh computers online from Hirt & Carter. Computers have been commoditised, and the company expects e-commerce to aid in reducing hardware and improving margins.
Resolution Software MD Grant Skinner says his company has seen Hirt & Carter evolve from simply investing in a new system, to obtaining business improvement, to gaining a true strategic edge through pursuing the e-business route.
"Over three years we have been able to scale from a low-level user to extended use," says Skinner. "In every sense their implementation of Great Plains now can be compared to a far more expensive ERP system in terms of its functionality and its alignment with business processes and objectives.
"Hirt & Carter now uses practically all the tools and functionality in Great Plains. They have identified business requirements for specific product functionality, which encapsulates best business practices, and we have helped mould them to this functionality," adds Skinner. "Hirt & Carter is more IT-focused than most companies in our field of expertise and we are capitalising on technology not only for our internal use, but with the introduction of e-commerce to use it as a tool to benefit our customers," concludes Basel.
Interview with:
Mark Basel Group Financial Director Hirt & Carter (031) 203-3333 basel.mark@dbn.owlco.com
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