Cape Town-based business telephone solutions supplier Hymax South Africa has boosted its inventory and warranty management by implementing the Sage Line 200 enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from Sage Enterprise Solutions (ES). Comparex Africa's Tetra division - the largest Sage reseller outside the UK - supplied the solution, worth R450 000.
Hymax is one of the largest PABX supply networks in SA, with more than 45 sales and service centres nationwide, representing a combined annual turnover of more than R50 million. The company is particularly strong in the Western Cape, where it has captured 60% of the small to medium-sized market. Its 20 000 end-users nationwide include American Express, Sasol, Bankfin, Bokomo, Commercial Union and Denel.
The need to implement an ERP system arose when the company grew 600% in five years as it developed its direct sales and dealer network. Not only did the company's legacy accounting systems buckle under the expansion, but there was an urgency for inventory control to be fully integrated with the general ledger, and for the automation and management of warranty claims. The company also sought to prepare for the growth it expects in the IT market, along with the introduction of the second fixed-line telephone operator coming online in the near future.
"We reviewed a number of local and international solutions and chose Sage Line 200, for its system specifications and the fact that it is supported by Comparex Tetra's depth of skills," says Innes Campbell, financial director of Hymax.
Sage Line 200 is a fully Web-enabled and integrated, Windows NT-based solution for small to medium-sized organisations. It offers a range of financial, distribution and assemble/build-to-order modules to enable an organisation to gain complete control of its operations and share information across the business.
The new system supports 20 users across inventory, repairs, sales, finance and administration.
A key benefit is the control it gives over product warranties. "Our new-found ability to manage warranties saves costs and improves service levels, since we now have the database to check warranty expiry dates based on date of sale," says Campbell. "The add-on repair management facility improves repairs cost management."
The system's inventory control facility provides real-time, multi-site views of current and expected stock, with features such as perpetual inventory, location management, stock rotation, obsolescence and quality control, to give Hymax full confidence in the management of its 1 400 component line items.
"Previously we operated a manual system for inventory and stock control, and had limited data, ordering procedures or product control," says Campbell. Another benefit is the multi-warehouse management capability enabling control of several warehouses throughout the country. It also enables Hymax to control internal and external warehouses, giving staff a view of stock availability at the importer's warehouse.
Seagate Crystal Reports is supplied as the standard report writer with Line 200, enabling Hymax to drill down to analyse sales by customer, dealer, product, region and month/year to date. "This is a huge improvement over the previous system, which could only report on sales per customer," says Campbell.
Where previously only total cost could be seen, Hymax management can now obtain gross profit information by product or by component.
On imported components, management can extract foreign exchange amounts, enabling it to identify the product, the foreign currency cost, and the exchange conversion rate to facilitate forward ordering. Management can also drill down to entry level on income statements and balance sheets.
"We can now compare sales margins by product and type of sale and various cost options," says Campbell. "Sage gives us complete confidence in the data we are producing at any time, at any point."
The next step for Hymax is to replace its manual inventory data-capture system with a scanning solution. Various solutions are being investigated.
"The scalability of the Line 200 package meets the needs of a growing business, while rapid implementation and ease of configuration provide a rapid return on investment," says Stephen Howe, divisional manager of Tetra.
"Online, real-time information is of paramount importance to manage a business effectively. To achieve this, the right foundations need to be laid. Sage gives Hymax a firm foundation that ensures data integrity as the company continues to grow. It delivers constant access to information enabling timeous decision-making on anything from strategic direction to repairs and returns. The confidence Hymax has in its data today is a major turnaround from its data integrity problems of the past."
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