Frucor smooths electronic ordering

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

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