PG Group, a leading manufacturer and distributor of automotive and building glass, has awarded a R100 million, five-year managed services and SAP implementation contract to Faritec and Iserve.
The contract will see Faritec and Iserve `the partnership` managing the PG Group`s entire IT infrastructure, in over 160 locations across SA, Namibia, Mozambique and Zambia.
The partnership will implement and support mySAP ERP for the group`s South African factories, head office and distribution centres, and SAP Business One for its dispersed environments of distribution and retailing.
Malcolm Carew, group finance director at PG Group, explains that the group will derive substantial cost and efficiency benefits from the agreement. "We expect this contract, through a process of consolidation and transformation, to enable us to reduce our ongoing IT costs by almost 30%, and ultimately improve our overall financial performance."
This contract represents one of the partnership`s largest managed services deals, with PG Group`s current IT outsource vendor base consolidated from three in 2004 to just this partnership in 2005 as result of the agreement.
According to the details of the agreement, the partnership will operate and manage PG Group`s servers, storage, network, help-desk, PCs and security. It will also be responsible for the group`s core business applications including SAP, point of sale systems and Microsoft Exchange and SAP support.
"The benefit of managed services for a company such as PG Group is a lower cost of IT delivery with a significant value-add - the ability to focus on core business objectives," says Simon Tomlinson, CEO at Faritec. "This five-year contract will ensure PG Group`s IT strategy remains in line with its business objectives - at a controlled cost."
PG Group is presently running on disparate systems including SAP, Baan, AS400 and Delphi. The new implementation has already started and is expected to be completed by October 2006. According to Faritec and Iserve, the project`s integration of mySAP ERP and SAP Business One using SAP`s Netweaver technology will be the largest project of its kind undertaken in SA.
"Iserve has been supporting the SAP aspect of the business for the past six years and the intimate knowledge of the products and business processes in the flat glass industry will stand us in good stead for this project," says Cassie Lessing, managing director of Iserve.
"We needed IT partners with the scope and scale to support our IT requirements as we continue to grow. By working with Faritec and Iserve we have created a flexible solution that will bring improved service, a rigorous IT governance model and financial savings," concludes Carew.
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Faritec, a black empowered IT services company listed on the JSE, provides managed business and technology infrastructure solutions. Faritec combines intellectual capital, resources, technology and business processes to provide tailor-made IT solutions with the objective of assisting customers to manage their businesses more effectively.
Iserve is a wholly owned subsidiary of JSE-listed company ERP.com Holdings Limited. Iserve is an accredited SAP National Services Partner, SAP Hosting Partner, SAP All-In-One Partner and SAP Business One partner. Iserve can, therefore, provide SAP solutions to organisations of varying sizes, from as small as five users to a user base of several thousand.
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