Business Background

The Group of Companies consists of three separate entities. Along with carving up extensive market coverage with 22 retail outlets, the group is well diversified including manufacturing of high quality plastic household products & the assembly of household appliances

Entity 1: Established in 1991 as a single department store in Ghana’s capital, Accra. It is now the flagship branch in a network of 22, spread across the country. Branches have been established over the years in Adabraka (Accra), Kaneshie (Accra), Dansoman (Accra), Kumasi (2 branches), Tamale, Takoradi, Tema (2 branches), Cape Coast, Swedru, Sunyani, Hohoe, Koforidua, Aflao and Kasoa. The company has grown to become the largest department store chain in the country with the largest variety of goods available under one roof.

Entity 2: Established in 1995, embarked into a major expansion in 1997. The company assembles a range of DVD’s, VCD’s, Split air-conditioners, radio cassette recorders, hi-fi systems, televisions, fans, rechargeable lights and home appliances (pressing irons, blenders, rice cookers, ovens, kettles, toasters).

Entity 3: A plastics (injection molding) manufacturing industry producing insulated products and domestic household plastic ware. With a workforce of 250 workers, the company uses modern injection molding and ancillary machinery from Italy, Taiwan, China, India and the US for its production. Production technology includes, not only injection molding, but also PU foam insulation, ultrasonic welding and hot stamping.

 

Objectives of ERP

The Group wanted to integrate all their business divisions and also streamline the operational challenges of the retail business spread over multiple branches through a cost effective yet powerful ERP system

Solution Choice

The group was running on a FoxPro Based Software (SOFT) for their operation. They had seen many ERP products; they wanted to have a close fit ERP for their operation. They also wanted the system to be flexible and user friendly. Finally they concluded their evaluation by deciding in favor of ebizframe

Pre-Implementation Scenario

Pre-Implementation:

Some of the salient points of the implementation at the group are as follows:

• A new Point of Sales Module has been developed specially for Melcom
• The Point of Sale Module can also work independently at the branch level, it supports centralised and decentralised model.
• Controlling of stock level spread over Multiple warehouses
• Tighter control on thefts and pilferages at the warehouse
• Easier reconciliation of Branch Sales on a daily basis
• They can now easily handle multiple schemes and promotions

Benefits after implementation of ebizframe ERP

• Seamless integration of all departments (purchase, inventory, finance, sales) and eliminated duplication of work.
• Elimination of unauthorized access and data manipulation causing fraud
• Better control over sales pricing
• Better control over stock reorder levels in branches. Branches now cannot exceed the stock limits
• Better control over warehouse and warehouse block (bin) wise stock management
• Better control over shop space management
• Now they are able to treat every branch as a project to get branch wise financial reports and profit and loss
• Tighter control on discounts and scheme. Only authorized users/till can provide additional discount
• Availability of global balance of client to all branches resulting into better credit management
• Accurate stock valuation reports available from the system
• Ebizframe has made designing and controlling unlimited number of marketing schemes and promotions
• Better management of delivery of goods to branches and customers

Infrastructure

ebizframe has been implemented on HP ML 370 server with dual processor and 8GB RAM. The system is installed on the central server at the Head office in Accra and other 8 branches are connected online with the server with dedicated broadband connection. However the branches can function independently throughout the day in order to do that they transfer relevant information from the HO to the branches vice versa on a daily basis.