Saving the ERP on the brink of being scrapped for a Manufacturer

Challenge

  • Customer had invested significant amount in a sophisticated global ERP application. However, the ERP was neither helping management in controlling the operations nor helping finance perform it’s function efficiently.
  • Customer was on the verge of scrapping the ERP and move to a basic accounting application.
  • Difficulty in performing day to day activities. Further, it wasn’t clear whether this situation was on account of any issue in the system or user understanding.
  • Manual & out of the system workarounds introduced in the process over the period thereby not having a standard process and spending more efforts than necessary.
  • Manual records for auditors’ data requirements like Sub-ledger to General Ledger reconciliation of AR, AP, Inventory, FA, Accruals etc.
  • Manual records for statutory compliances like TDS, Excise / GST, VAT etc.

How we helped

  • Root-cause analysis revealed lack of user awareness, understanding of the system and training leading to incorrect & inefficient manual processes
  • Root-cause analysis also revealed inconsistencies in access rights vis-à-vis functional responsibilities & inadequacy of reports, accentuating the problem of user understanding.
  • Recommended & helped with the action plan in 3 categories; User training, data correction and system setup (including report development) changes
  • Recommended process changes to take benefit of ERP features and remove redundancy
  • Reconciled historical financial data & helped clean-up the data in ERP
  • Recommended IT for development of reports across finance requirements, including format design & business test cases for acceptance
  • Recommended role of Super-users from Subject Matter Experts for each process
  • Drove the entire engagement as a Program, encompassing Planning, Execution, co-ordination with all stakeholders (including third party technology vendor) and periodic review with Steering Committee to ensure timeliness and appropriate direction.

Benefits

  • The investment in the ERP was salvaged with efficiently used ERP and well-trained users.
  • Project delivered successfully in a tight timeline with all issues addressed
  • Manual & redundant processes done away with improved efficiency
  • Impact on regular operations was very minimal due to significant saving in bandwidth of staff