PG Bison Ltd, one of SA`s leading distributors of panel and wood products, together with its strategic IT outsourcing partner EOH, recently upgraded its existing IT infrastructure to support its supply chain and customer service functionality in the business. The investment, worth R25 million, is expected to enhance PG Bison`s ability to meet the needs of its customers with increasingly efficient levels of service. The project is said to offer a three-year payback.
In 1996, EOH installed the Triton ERP solution, which runs on Unix with HP 9000 servers utilising an Oracle database. The latest project has successfully integrated the Pivotal Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and i2 Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solutions using Triton as the core transactional base.
PG Bison has five factory sites and four logistics centres with 11 outlets covering southern Africa and Namibia. The current implementation forms part of the complete system upgrade, carried out by EOH. For the last five years PG Bison has outsourced its entire IT services to EOH, which has been responsible for providing project management and implementation and support skills through on-site teams across the country.
The implementation offers a competitive advantage in the forecasting facilities that the ERP solution now supports. This allows PG Bison to manage demand and anticipate future requirements, resulting in greater reliability and supplier dependability as well as a greater level of intimacy with customers.
Andrew Gilbert, executive director of PG Bison, says: "The need to meet the requirements of our customers encouraged us to rethink our e-business strategy. With the continued support of EOH, we are now in a position where we have a greater understanding of our customers and a more hands-on approach to our supply chain. A functionality-rich Web site has also been deployed which affords customers the ability to access a wide variety of information. At present a storefront is being implemented which would allow customers to order electronically."
Peter Bartlett, executive director of EOH, says: "Apart from the obvious advantages - for example greater efficiency and improved customer service - of having a fully integrated business solution, PG Bison also benefits from having access to an extensive skills base overseeing the day-to-day IT functions which is managed by EOH."
Gilbert adds that PG Bison chose EOH because of its reputation and exceptional support. "With EOH`s expertise and intimate knowledge of PG Bison`s business, we were able to realign the structure of our organisation to be nimble in areas of customer service. There is no IT function that EOH does not support within PG Bison. We are delighted with our partner of choice who has given us excellent consultancy throughout our working relationship," concludes Gilbert.
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