Frucor smoothes electronic ordering,
saves on support with SAP Process Integration
Speedier transactions, better business decision-making
Leading drinks manufacturer Frucor has chosen SAP Process Integration to improve customer automated ordering systems and
in-house field based ordering systems. Frucor is already using the solution with one major grocery chain in New Zealand
and will roll it out with further customers in Australia and New Zealand in the next few months.
SAP Process Integration leverages enterprise services delivered by SAP and enables closer integration of
Frucor’s existing IT legacy applications. It replaced proprietary software, which had been developed in-house, and will
dramatically reduce the time to integrate new customers into Frucor’s automated ordering systems, improving customer
order and fulfillment accuracy. The solution was implemented by Tango Group, a leading SAP System Integrator.
“Given the complexity of our operations it made sense to leverage SAP to provide interfaces between our core ERP and our
third-party customer order exchange,” says Paul Miller, CIO, Frucor. “SAP Process Integration opens doors to customer
information that would have remained complex and slow to integrate. We really didn’t want to compromise on this.”
Paul says the integration with SAP Financials and other middleware was a breeze.
“Already 50 percent of Frucor’s sales are going through the interface. It means improved clarity in our communications
and transactions, fewer errors and faster issue resolution. It will support our efforts to grow our customer base across
Australasia but it can also scale as we target more international customers,” says Paul.
“The most significant impact on the business is smoothing out our electronic ordering processes. If an Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI) goes wrong, SAP Process Integration means errors can be corrected quickly by the right people, and
this makes it easier for customers to do business with us.”
It provides Frucor with a robust platform for exchanging data between multiple applications, both internal and
external. SAP Process Integration enables data transfer between non-SAP applications as well as to and from SAP
applications.
“This all gives us better, more up-to-date information for business decision making,” says Paul.
In the next phase of the project SAP Process Integration will also assist in improving the interface to sales force
tools. In conjunction with SAP Solution Manager, it will also provide an alerting and monitoring capability as well as
transport management which aligns well with Frucor’s standard practice.
“One real advantage of SAP Process Integration is that it is already minimising our internal support costs, in
both finance and IT. Our costs for keeping the old system running were greater than the cost to replace the system!”
adds Paul. “We’re already seeing cost savings through EDI monitoring of transactions and lower error rates.”
Frucor will also save on internal costs for IT development and support, sales support and customer services through
order automation.
“I’m seeing a high local uptake of SAP Process Integration and SAP NetWeaver as a middleware platform to improve
efficiencies and drive business network integration,” says Graeme Riley, Managing Director, SAP New Zealand. “Frucor is
a good example of how organisations can benefit from the solution’s capacity to drive integrated processes within a
business and beyond to trading partners as well.”
“We’re also anticipating a significant improvement in our turn-around of EDI requests,” says Paul.
The initial design and phase one development of EDI was completed in March 2010. The integration and phase two
development, including integration with mobile sales force tools, is scheduled for later this year.
As implementation partner, Tango is a good cultural fit with Frucor. The company takes a best practice approach and the
project team already works in partnership with Frucor, enabling knowledge sharing between the organisations. Also, Tango
offers in-house resources (rather than contracted) with specific SAP Process Integration skills, and the team is locally
based.
“Tango had the expertise we were looking for, a great reputation in the industry and we enjoy the partnership approach,”
says Paul.
ENDS