Two years after going live with a SAP Business One ERP financial software solution implemented by branded business and technology solutions provider Lorge, retail nursery and garden centre Flora Farm at Boksburg has reaped many benefits and knows there are yet more to come.
A large and busy operation, Flora Farm opened for business in 1973 and is one of the largest retail nurseries and garden centres in southern Africa, located on a 20ha site. The operation mans 10 tills constantly during the nursery season from August to May and five to six tills during the off season.
Administration and systems manager, Anne Oosthuysen said the conversion to SAP from a DOS-based system went smoothly and relatively easily after three days of intensive training by Lorge.
"The implementation was well executed by Lorge whose staff worked through the night to ensure everything was in place for an easy switch-over. Since then we`ve never looked back.
"The first year had its difficulties primarily because of our unfamiliarity with the system but that all changed with time. Now that our SAP programme has been operational for two years, I believe we would find more advanced training to be of great benefit. The software is very user friendly and the more you play with it the more you find it can do. I believe the benefits that will accrue to me and the other 17 staff working with SAP once we have undertaken more advanced training, will be more than impressive."
Flora Farm is planning on implementing budgets for each department within the business and will be seeking assistance from Lorge in setting this up as well as fine tuning of the business intelligence reporting feature.
With some 17 000 item codes on the books the SAP solution has proved a boon. Oosthuyzen said all stock is captured in the Cistech point-of-sale software and then imported into SAP, which has reduced stocktaking to a maximum of two days, frequently less.
Software written by Lorge enables Flora Farm to produce product labels with bar codes detailing the price, how long the plant has been held in stock, the species name and the supplier details. This information is transferred into Cistech at the point of sale and is then integrated into SAP where it is reconciled against stockholding.
The SAP functionality for production and bill of materials has also proved of great benefit to the nursery which makes up plant baskets that may entail as many as 30 separate stock items. Oosthuyzen said these items are now automatically taken off stock which saves much time and effort.
"We are also able to track plant stock that dies or deteriorates to the extent that it cannot be sold, broken bags of compost, sand, potting soil and so on and these are then removed and used in the bowls, baskets or planters that we make up."
Flora Farm is very conscious of building and maintaining relationships with its customers and Oosthuyzen said the business has some 11 000 VICs (very important customers), who receive preferential treatment and can accumulate purchasing points and discounts.
Purchase points can be exchanged for additional products and all of the detail within the scheme used to be manually entered into a spreadsheet. Flora Farm staff now enter the VIC number into Cistech at the point of sale and are able to view all information relating to that particular customer. Customers can then immediately make use of accumulated purchase points for discounts or in exchange for other products.
"Overall, the SAP solution is user-friendly and intuitive, offering logical options for selection and we have been able to structure it so that staff can gain access to the levels of information and functionality they require in order to do their jobs efficiently and effectively," said Oosthuyzen.
The software also binds and unifies management, finance, sales, service and procurement in a centralised database while offering the scalability to meet Flora Farm`s longer term needs.
"There are many elements of this Lorge SAP solution that we will in future benefit from as ongoing training will continue to take us to higher levels," said Oosthuyzen. "We are growing with the system, which I believe represents the fertiliser, compost and water that will ensure the ongoing health and expansion of the business."
Share