Cebu-based transportation and retail financing giant shifts gears for greater visibility of its businesses
Philippines — The Norkis Group of Companies, a pioneer in the transportation and retail financing industry in the Philippines since 1962, recently acquired several SAP solutions, including SA® Business Suite and SAP® for Auto to maximise potential benefits in the transportation industry and reach world-class functionality status. The SAP implementation for Norkis also rounded up named partners to ensure its successful completion: Alliance Software Incorporated (ASI) for mobile solutions and software, IBM for database server technology, Kaisa Consulting for business solutions development and consulting, and SSI for platform consolidation.
With multiple businesses covering vehicle assembly, distribution, retail financing and realty, Norkis needed a 360-degree view of its business to continue its growth across the country and deliver the best service to its customers, dealers and partners.
“The acquisition of SAP® ERP is one of the steps Norkis is taking to constantly upgrade our competencies in the areas of service, distribution and retail financing to ensure the leadership of Norkis in the industry,” said Dr. Norberto B. Quisumbing, Jr., Norkis Founder and Chairman. “By investing in SAP, we are bringing greater efficiencies to our operations and enabling us to focus on innovating our products and services. Moreover, it demonstrates our strong commitment to help Filipinos fulfill their dream of acquiring an affordable, reliable and fuel efficient vehicle of their own.”
SAP Business Suite, of which SAP ERP is the core platform, is a comprehensive family of business applications that allow companies to manage their entire value chain. With SAP Netweaver® as its foundation, application integration and an open platform is already built-in, thereby giving Norkis end-to-end process management and low total cost of ownership across the entire IT landscape. More importantly, it supports the evolution of SAP Business Suite to a services-based architecture.
SAP Philippines Country Manager Krishnendu Datta said the SAP Business Suite and SAP for Auto solution paves the way for Norkis to trail the blaze once more in the local automotive industry.
“SAP is delighted that Norkis has given us their trust,” Datta states. “With SAP’s expertise in business integration, we are committed to help Norkis manage its most critical business applications and become a partner in its continuing success.”
The SAP implementation at Norkis is currently underway with Kaisa Consulting providing its industry expertise in developing an effective close-loop business model. With Kaisa’s experience in developing industry solutions on SAP, Norkis can utilise the “forecast to sales cycle” in a more efficient method through functionalities like automatic inventory update, warranty master data & monitoring, online storage of asset, inter-module integration, among other features that the SAP solutions can offer.
Norkis is also looking to leverage on the leadership of Alliance Software Inc., which will provide mobile solutions in reporting, collection updates and electronic forms.
Meanwhile Norkis tapped Strategic Synergy, Inc. (SSI) to consolidate Norkis’ SAP servers onto a single platform using IBM’s Infrastructure Simplification. Norkis’ applications will run on an IBM pSeries platform with cost-effective scalability and improved responsiveness. The Norkis solution also comes with IBM’s DB2, IBM’s reliable database solution is bundled together and tightly integrated with SAP solution.
Norkis will be implementing key applications including SAP® Financials, SAP® Sales and Distribution, and SAP® Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM), which enables Norkis to realise key areas of opportunities in retail financing, financial, sales, inventory, and IT aspects of the business. Together, these SAP solutions enable operational excellence while providing visibility across all of Norkis’ branches, areas of business and subsidiaries. It is expected to increase business profitability while lowering dealer operating costs through the automation of business critical processes. With full visibility, Norkis can quickly translate customer signals into operational response, both internally and with key partners.
The solution also allows Norkis to analyse information recorded in day-to-day operations, plus structured and unstructured information from across the enterprise, in an executive dashboard. With real-time access to accurate information regarding up-to-date financial and operation performance indicators, Norkis will now have the ability to respond faster to business and market changes, make key decisions in a timelier manner and gain competitive advantage.
Norkis also adopted SAP for Auto, an industry-specific portfolio using solutions from SAP Business Suite designed to meet the needs of transport or automotive organisations. SAP for Auto resolves implementation challenges by providing industry-specific templates based on best practices. Driven by the needs of customers in the automotive market, these solutions accelerate implementation and Norkis’ time to greatly benefit customers.
Standardising and streamlining of internal processes is currently underway at Norkis. SAP CRM and SAP® Business Intelligence is slated as the next phase of implementation to enhance customer and supplier collaboration while gaining valuable strategic business insight. Moving forward, Norkis aims to complete its business integration with the roll-out of SAP® Human Capital and SAP® Strategic Enterprise Management (SAP SEM).
About NORKIS
Spanning 45 years of serving the transport needs of the Philippines, the Norkis Group of companies operates more than 300 retail financing branches of their own and more than 2,000 authorized display centers in all the major cities and municipalities of the country. Spearheaded by Dr. Norberto B. Quisumbing, Jr., Chairman and Madame Britta B. Quisumbing, Vice-Chairperson with Mr. Luis B. Quisumbing as President, Norkis has emerge as an icon of Filipino entrepreneurship in the country. It has diverse interests in motorcycle retail financing, being Yamaha’s partner in the motorcycle industry, financial services of various products, spare parts distributorship, real estate and other ventures.
The Norkis Retail Financing Operations in the country is the leading installment operations catering to motorcycles, 4-wheel vehicles and other products. It is complemented by close to 3,000 field operations personnel who cater to the needs of close to 200,000 accounts. The customer base is expected to grow further as the Norkis Group expands its retail financing outlets in more geographic markets. Furthermore, the range of products and services will also be diverse as the Norkis Group continues to fulfill its mission in offering convenience and support to the Filipino consumer.
