Sanipex Group benefits from Sage ERP implementation

The company says IT is at the core of its operations and will help its aggressive growth plans.

Sanipex represents some of the leading luxury sanitaryware brands such as Yorkshire, Shires, Eurobath, Multikwik, Sanit, Hoesch Design, Kaldewei, Bossini, Bertocci, Galassia and Reginox. Its customers include Hotels, Contractors, Interior Designers, other sanitaryware trading houses and retail buyers. The company has experienced significant growth over the last several years and plans to have 50 showrooms in the next two years.

Currently, Sanipex has two showrooms in the UAE and one each in Bahrain and Oman. It also has twenty one franchisee and dealership showrooms across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Central Asia. It has a logistics centre in the UAE that services the entire region.

Kevan Halliwell, Group Commercial Director, Sanipex Group said,"With our operations growing at such a fast pace, we needed an ERP system that would streamline our operations and help us to continue delivering outstanding customer service. We felt this was the key to maintaining our premium position. Using Sage ERP has helped us improve the efficiency with which we function."

Sage ERP modules used by Sanipex include - Inventory, Sales, Purchasing, Receivables, Payables and General Ledger. Benefits of the new system are manifold: As an example, the system has greatly streamlined the sales business process and significantly reduced order processing time.

Each sales order can have 60 to 70 items. It used to take Sanipex staff up to an hour to prepare a sales order. With Sage's powerful search within search functionality, it now takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete a Sales Order.

Once an order is entered, goods can be allocated against it so that delivery commitments are met. If sufficient stock is not available, a partial shipment can be made depending on the customer requirement, and a back order is automatically created in the system for the quantity / items not available. This ensures that any shortfall of items will be ordered by Purchasing in time.

Sanipex now has global visibility of stock items across all warehouses and locations. The system gives accurate stock and customer information quickly enabling better delivery of customer service.

When goods are received, Sanipex can enter costs accrued like shipping charges, customs etc. in a landed cost matrix against shipments or batches. This helps Sanipex get an accurate figure of profit by invoice.

Kevan Halliwell continued, "Sage has brought significant savings to the processing time required for purchases. On the accounting side, Sage ERP has improved credit control and cash flow within the organization. One of the key benefits the system has delivered is the ability of the management to get Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) for the business. We now get reports such as daily sales by division, by Manager, daily purchases and quotations raised and accurate customer wise, product wise profitability. These reports help the management proactively manage the company and take better business decisions."

The Sage ERP system runs on an Intel server located at the head office in Dubai. Sanipex plans to use a leased line and VPN for remote users to login as the system usage expands geographically.

"The key to our successful ERP implementation was good planning. The project was sponsored by the top management and all the business stake holders were involved including the heads of sales, purchasing and accounts. We had the buy in from all the business stake holders and this helped the project a great deal. The total elapsed time from start to finish was four months and in line with our expectations." concluded Kevan.

Shishir Srivastava, Executive Director, Sage Middle East commented, "Sanipex is yet another example of how local companies can benefit from ERP and drive business growth. When used to its potential, ERP helps companies cut costs, improve business process and boost a company's performance. We strive to deliver continuous improvements to our products so that local companies can benefit from global best business practices."