The FINANCIAL — Leading company in Georgia Tegeta Motors, which has concluded a contract for SAP ERP implementation with Soft-Rating Consult Company (Ukraine), has put a USD 1 200 000 investment in to enterprise resource planning.
Tegeta Motors officials say that the main reason for putting the SAP system into operation in the company was the mechanization of the business processes and establishment of a discipline in producing the business. According to Soft-Rating officials, it is the first project of SAP-systems implementation in Georgia in the non-governmental branch of economics.
“The young team of Tegeta Motors started a Georgian market study back in 1995 and from the planned out a promising way in the business of importing and selling vehicle tires, oils and lubricants, batteries, spare parts, servicing equipment and tools, and not long after received a status recognized as an official dealer by the world’s most famous companies,” Tegeta Motors officials note.
Tegeta Motors, Golden Brand winner company is one of the largest Georgian enterprises in the field of services on supply of spare parts, fuel and lubricating materials, car maintenance and repairs.
“We managed to put together a firm team of professionals providing the company with all the necessary information in conjunction with the market. The company continuously takes care of raising the qualifications of its personnel, and as a result they are sent for trainings to Europe, namely to Germany and Austria, where they take part in training programmes recommended by our partners. As a result of that Tegeta Motors made it to the leading position on the Georgian market that it enjoys today,” Tegeta Motors officials note.
“In my view, the SAP programme helps the company direct the right implementation. The world’s leading companies use the SAP programme and direct their activities under the control of this system. It was not an easy process implementing this programme at our company, but we have already had the SAP system in service for 3 months,” says George Mshvildadze, General Director of Tegeta Motors.
“One of the main reasons for why we decided to join the SAP system was in order to get operative information in time. We have had this system installed at our company for 3 months already and the first effect that we have seen is that our excess goods are arranged and also the cost formation system has also been improved,” Valeri Mezvrishvili, Financial Director of Tegeta Motors, told The FINANCIAL.
The SAP ERP application is an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software manufactured by SAP AG that targets business software requirements of midsize and large organizations in all industries and sectors. It allows for open communication within and between all company functions.
SAP was founded in 1972 as System analyse und Programmentwicklung (System Analysis and Program Development) by five former IBM engineers in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg (Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus E. Tschira, and Claus Wellenreuther).
SAP stands for Systems, Applications and Products (Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in the original German) in Data Processing. It uses the concept of modules (“individual programmes that can be purchased, installed, and run separately, but that all extract data from the common database”).
SAP AG, the company that provides the enterprise resource planning solution has upgraded the package and launched it as SAP ECC 6.0 in 2005. ECC stands for ERP Central Component. The purpose of positioning it as ECC is to enable SAP to build and develop an environment of other products that can function upon the foundation of the central component.
SAP’s ERP solution includes several modules that support key functional areas; some of them are SAP ERP Financials, SAP ERP Logistics, and SAP ERP Human Resource Management.
According to its officials, SAP ERP systems effectively implemented can have huge cost benefits. Integration is the key in this process. “Generally, a company’s level of data integration is highest when the company uses one vendor to supply all of its modules.” An out-of-box software package has some level of integration but it depends on the expertise of the company to install the system and how the package allows the users to integrate the different modules.
“Independent studies have shown that deployment and maintenance costs of an SAP solution can greatly vary depending on the organization. For example, some point out that because of the rigid model proposed by the SAP tools, a lot of customization code to adapt to the business process may have to be developed and maintained. Some others pointed out that a return on investment could only be obtained when there was both a sufficient number of users and sufficient frequency of use. Deploying SAP itself can also involve a lot of time and resources,” SAP officials note.
The SAP ERP system is implemented in such world famous companies as Bridgestone, MAN, Shell, Mercedes-Benz U.S., General Motors, Microsoft Corporation, HP, NEC, Harley-Davidson, Bast, Ericsson, Coca Cola Bottling Co., PepsiCo Inc., Exxon Mobile, Glaxosmithkline, Henkel, Johnson & Johnson, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Panavision Inc., Philip Morris USA Inc., Fujitsu Siemens, IBM, the world’s and Europe’s largest financial companies, banks and many others.
ERP allows easier global integration (barriers of currency exchange rates, language, and culture can be bridged automatically), updates only need to be done once to be implemented company wide, provides real-time information, reducing the possibility of redundancy errors, creates a more efficient work environment making it easier for employees to do their job which leads to effectiveness.
Written By Tako Khelaia
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