ZAMBIA — After a series of mergers and acquisitions left the Zambian office of global security giant G4S with a legacy infrastructure that was incompatible with G4S’ globally accepted platform, SAP Africa brought order to the IT chaos in the form of its Business One solution.
This single application eliminates the need for separate installations and complex integration of multiple modules by encapsulating all core business functions across a company’s entire operations from financials and sales, through to customer relationship management as well as inventory.
“Before going live with Business One, there was a lack of data integrity in international reporting which led to a range of governance and transparency issues, coupled with inefficiencies in local business processes,” says Dawda Bobb, G4S Zambia’s Finance Director.
Bobb continues: “SAP Business One has provided us with clarity. We are now able to drill down into detail that was previously not possible, providing us with the visibility and ability to really see what is happening in certain parts of our business.”
Desmond Nair, head of ecosystem and channels at SAP Africa explained that the need for accurate regional and global head office reporting is paramount within any international organisation, adding that G4S is no exception. According to Nair, the Zambian office of the company was finding itself challenged to deliver on this requirement.
Although the problems were eventually partly solved through additional internal processes, these reports still required a degree of manual manipulation to convert data from the legacy system into the required format. Hence, G4S Zambia found itself plagued with continued inaccuracies leading to queries at group level.
The (Business) One solution for addressing all issues
G4S decided to integrate SAP’s Business One solution and chose 4most as its supplier and implementer partner. “Security and integrity of data across all areas of its organisation is critical for G4S,” says Eugene Olivier, business development director at 4most. “After a detailed scope of their requirements, we were confident recommending SAP Business One as the best solution moving forward.”
The initial implementation phase incorporated the core financial databases, allowing for generation of ledgers, profit, and loss statements. This provided G4S Zambia with the required transparency and integrity in its reporting process.
Additional functionality was added including automation of the procurement, payroll, fixed assets and recurring billing functions, with each module seamlessly integrated into the SAP platform. All of this translated into additional business process efficiency gains, enhancements to local as well as international reporting, plus a 20% reduction in time, leading to a significant productivity boost for the company.
“The new infrastructure has also enjoyed widespread user acceptance and uptake, with the general feedback received rating the SAP system as a lot easier to navigate, understand, and use,” concludes Bobb.
Going forward, G4S Zambia is considering an automated Accounts Payable module, which will enable the firm to integrate creditor payments with its local bank.
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