Novell exteNd at the service of Acer Europe

Established in 1976, Acer is among the world`s top 10 branded PC vendors. It offers a broad range of products, from desktop computers and notebooks to network servers. It also offers a range of PC peripherals under the Benq brand, including CD readers and writers, scanners and LCD projectors.

In June 2001, Acer Europe, the regional headquarters responsible for business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, began looking into a system able to centralise the business processes of all the various separate branches in Europe, while retaining the same back-office applications existing in the various countries.

After careful analysis, the choice fell on the Novell exteNd product suite. This product family enabled development of a Web services-based order and sales management system able to provide customers with more efficient services and improve efficiency within the company.

Before introducing the new system, the Acer branches operated as separate entities using procedures and back-office applications that varied from country to country for new product launches, financial information management and orders and sales management.

These architectures were all developed at different moments in the various countries and did not allow information sharing. Therefore, decisions were taken on the basis of manually consolidated information that was not always up to date or complete.

System architecture:

The new system of data management was developed by Novell in under six months. Based on 12 different existing back office systems, a Web services system was developed to create consistent and continuous information collection, centralised order management and a real-time exhaustive overall vision of the business.

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As well as integrating the back-office system into the new data management system, Novell exteNd technology also reduced the amount of manual data entry (numbers are now captured using the standard integration modules of exteNd Composer) and laid the foundation for the new Acer Europe business initiatives platform. The final presentation of data is now made using a standard analysis tool such as Microsoft Excel.

The data management system architecture includes two Novell exteNd Composer servers, the first to centralise and synchronise the information from the various back-office installations, and the second for the requests from final users. The order management system can process any business information in EDI or XML format.

Present and future advantages:

Such rapid project implementation has enabled Acer Europe to reinforce its competitive market position, by being the first PC manufacturer in Europe to introduce such a sophisticated data management system. The effects on business were immediate, and in the course of 2002 - a negative year for much of the sector - Acer significantly increased its market share.

The new order management system allowed Acer Europe to improve its operational efficiency and cut costs considerably, thanks to the availability of complete and up-to-date information about the branches and the reduction in errors from the previous manual data entry system.

The quality of the product mix has also improved considerably as the company has been able to focus on the product ranges most popular with consumers, reducing the number of products that are sold at a discount or in sales, and increasing profit margins. Finally, customer services has capitalised on faster order processing, making the company more flexible and reactive to customers needs.

Over the next few months the order management systems in place in Africa and the Middle East will be integrated into a single system. Novell exteNd allows simple expansion of all or part of the system and rapid integration with other systems according to the needs of the company. Unifying the Web services strategy will enable Acer Europe to consolidate its business and be ready and flexible to adapt to market changes.