PABX sharpens its competitive edge with SAP
PABX Sales and Service Pty Ltd’s legacy system was limited in its ability to cope with the company's increasingly complex business landscape. Enter SAP Business One...
In 1998, a one man company started as a channel partner to NEC Australia, one of Australia’s leading IT corporations. Since then, telecommunications equipment and services provider PABX Sales and Service Pty Ltd (PABX Sales) has been growing by leaps and bounds.
With an annual turnover of AUS$6 million, this 23-person operation designs, supplies, installs and maintains telecommunications networks for many medium-to-large enterprises.
The company, however, could not afford to rest on its laurels as new technologies emerged and competition increased due to the convergence of voice and data networks. As a result of this progressively complex business landscape, the company needed a business management solution to sharpen and retain its competitive edge.
“We had a rudimentary system that could only perform basic accounting functions and it couldn’t keep up with the increasing sophistication of our business,” says Gordon Blunsdon, dealer principle, PABX Sales.
This legacy system was handicapped when it came to generating detailed service level and business performance reports. The lack of visibility into project status and availability of resources also resulted in the company’s limited ability to keep track of inventory or to plan and manage budgets.
Using a manual system also gave rise to many inefficiencies. For example, creating invoices was a headache as information needed for invoicing had to be retrieved by the finance department and manually re-entered into their own accounting system. This meant a delay in generating invoices with obvious implications for cash flow.
Rich functionality at an affordable price
PABX Sales and Services’ initial plan was to purchase an off-the-shelf service management system. However, SAP Business One’s wide plethora of functions, ease-of-use, scalability and attractive price tag proved too hard to resist, said Blunsdon. Being able to leverage the rich ecosystem of SAP partners who are focused on developing integrated modules also convinced PABX Sales and Service of SAP’s fit with the company’s long-term plans.
PABX Sales and Service took a hands-on approach by deploying the SAP solutions themselves. At the same time, it also relied on its implementation partner, Evolution Software Services for technical assistance when needed because of its deep experience with SAP solutions.
It took four months to implement the financial and service modules, which went live in July and October 2006 respectively.
Better resource management with SAP
With SAP Business One in place, PABX Sales and Service now has a knowledge-based system that not only improves communication between customers, suppliers and employees, but also delivers greater insight into its business operation.
For example, it can now get up-to-date reports on availability of materials, its business operations and even monitor its financial performance.
Efficiency has also improved. As customers now receive invoices in two or three days, in contrast to the previous delay of up to 10 days. Also, having an automated system eliminates many manual processes resulting in fewer errors and improved productivity.
The company can also maintain stock at an optimal level by tracking the number of parts and components technician carry in their vehicles. Being able to access the number of hours each engineer spends on projects also helps in billing accuracy.
Additionally, PABX Sales and Service management is delighted with the newfound ease in setting and managing budgets.
Enhancing business value
“We’re extremely pleased with the new SAP system and choosing SAP has proven to be the right decision,” says Blunsdon.
Having enjoyed the benefits of the new system, PABX Sales and Service has also decided to implement two additional Add on-module from Enprise Solutions to assist with time management and job costing — a move which PABX Sales and Service management feels can enhance business value.
“With SAP Business One, we’re confident of taking on larger and more complex projects and managing them profitably,” says Blunsdon.
Larger businesses are also impressed that PABX Sales and Service is using a sophisticated platform generally considered to only be suitable for very large companies. Interestingly, many of PABX Sales and Service’s key customers, large enterprises themselves also use SAP ERP within their organisations.
Blunsdon added: “The additional benefit of “SAP Business One is that it adds credibility to our business and clients value us even more as we run our business on the most reliable business process software solution in the world. The solution isn’t just for big companies it’s also very suitable for smaller players such as PABX Sales and Service!”
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