South African cinema giant, Ster-Kinekor Theatres, went live on SAP R/3 this week and expects to complete the rollout within the next three months. CS Holdings is implementing the system for Ster-Kinekor through CS IMS, one of its enterprise business solution subsidiaries.
Ster-Kinekor Theatres is part of JSE-listed media group Primedia Holdings. It operates over 60 cinemas and distributes films to other cinema companies throughout Southern Africa.
The SAP R/3 enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is replacing Ster-Kinekor`s back-office legacy and manual systems. The contract included the development of an interface into Ster-Kinekor`s proprietary box-office system that handles all ticket sales.
"We wanted a fully integrated ERP system to control the main functions on one platform, to streamline business processes and to eliminate duplication of data entry," says Ster-Kinekor Theatres IT manager, Johan Botha. "We needed an effective management system that would enable better decision-making and more efficient running of the company.
"Ster-Kinekor Theatres is expanding internationally and we wanted to standardise on a robust international system. We evaluated various ERP systems and chose SAP because its comprehensive modules had the best fit to our processes," he says.
CS IMS has also trained the company`s power users on a train-the-trainer basis.
"The implementation went live at head office, two regional offices and ten branches on Monday, 13 September," says Botha. Two regional offices and 60 branches comprising 200 users will eventually be connected to the system. SAP R/3 is also being rolled out at Ster-Century UK and plans are underway to implement it at Ster-Kinekor`s Middle East operation. Ster-Kinekor Home Entertainment is already a well-established SAP R/3 user.
CS IMS project manager Carla Kotze says SAP lends itself well to entertainment industry. "Ster-Kinekor Theatres have found a good fit in particularly the financial, human resources, payroll, sales and distribution, materials management and project systems modules," she says. "SAP R/3 will give the company a far greater degree of control over its business operations and should enable the company to eliminate duplication of data entry. It puts best business practice processes in place that ensures a disciplined approach to operations."
The system is being implemented on a Dell server with Windows NT as the operating system and SQL Server as the database.
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