Solid Financial Management is key to SME success (page 2 of 2)

"In most companies, the financial accounting application is the first system to be installed, so it is usually the one that goes out of date first," says Anthony Peake, senior director of midmarket marketing for Oracle EMEA. "Small-business accounting systems are also very easy to outgrow, so many enterprises we spoke to either have a financial system that no longer supports their needs, or with multiple financial systems that can't link to each other."

The latter scenario was the problem faced by Pekarna Pecjac, a Slovenian company that has grown rapidly from a family-run concern to become the country's largest producer of frozen breads and pastries, employing 230 people. The company found itself running five or six disparate systems for financial and manufacturing management that could not adequately support its rapid growth.

It needed a comprehensive system that could automate processes between business areas and provide meaningful and up to date management information.

The bakery evaluated software from a number of suppliers of ERP systems, but all but one were rejected because they did not offer the requisite level of manufacturing management functionality integrated with the core finance software.

Pekarna Pecjak selected the Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition, which was being offered by local IT services provider OurSpace. OurSpace resolved the bakery's need for sophisticated process manufacturing functionality by incorporating Oracle Process Manufacturing into the Special Edition suite. They will implement the solution in January of the new calendar year and the resulting system will comfortably take the bakery into the next phase of its growth - expansion into neighbouring countries - and beyond.

As well as gaining full control of its financial operations, the bakery estimates that the Manufacturing functionality will eliminate bottlenecks in planning and stock control, enabling the company to get its products to market faster and at lower cost.

"Financial systems can all too easily be overlooked, especially if a company is in an exciting period of growth," says Oracle's Peake. "These stories show that solid finance systems that integrate with other business areas and can scale to grow as the company grows, are key to success in today's market."