Brick and paving manufacturing company Corobrik has used idu-Concept Sales to build its sales budget into a multi-layered, multi-summary information source facilitating accurate and rapid budgeting.
As the largest manufacturer, distributor and exporter of bricks and related building products in Africa, Corobrik has 14 factories across South Africa and the largest distribution network of brick and clay paving products in the country. The company also exports its products to the US, Japan, Dubai, the Gulf region and several countries in Africa.
"Our budget process was originally spreadsheet-based, which became too cumbersome for the complexities of our company," says Kevin Bowers, sales director at Corobrik.
"We were using a top-down process, starting at each factory and imposed on every level. We recognised the need to upgrade our budgeting system to cater not only for our factories but for many different levels within the company."
Corobrik looked locally and internationally for a software solution that was able to handle the numerous facets of the company and, most importantly, offer maximum flexibility.
In 2003 the company implemented idu-Target and ran the solution on that year`s budget to achieve a summary level by area and product, which could be drilled down to representative and product.
"The system showed that the level of detail we achieved was not necessary, and that it would be more useful to budget from the bottom up by representative and product. Most importantly, we saw that through idu, the total time spent capturing the budget could be reduced to about a week," says Bowers.
In 2005 Corobrik upgraded to idu-Concept Sales Module, further refining and streamlining its sales and budget forecast capture and reporting process by enabling numerous summary levels.
The Web-based system accommodates multiple companies, currencies, customer and product levels, enabling efficient budgeting at the lowest unit and the ability to switch between multiple summary levels. For planning convenience, budget and forecast version control exist completely independent of one another.
"idu-Concept Sales Module has revolutionised Corobrik`s budgeting process by enabling the building of a sales budget from the bottom up, which is key to the multi-faceted nature of the company`s budgeting process. The system is used to prepare the company`s annual sales budget per region, sales office, representative and product by factory of origin," says Margie Edwards, idu Software sales and marketing director.
Users of the system at Corobrik spend about a week capturing the sales budget, which in turn automatically calculates the sales revenue, cost of sales and transport-related costs. Such accurate sales budgeting assists the company with effective capacity planning for the 14 factories countrywide.
The flexibility of the software also caters for seasonal factors within the industry, accommodating the varying activity levels within the different regions across the country.
"The greatest advantage idu-Concept Sales Module has provided has been the ability to build our budget from the bottom up. The complexity involved in budgeting for in excess of 25 retail centres, as well as incorporating the numerous factories, is considerable and the system has relieved us of that stress," says Bowers.
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