"mySAP All-in-One stands head and shoulders above the others in terms of its promise to give us the operational cost-savings we are looking for." - Reef Business Systems
A solution developed in South Africa and based on mySAP All-in-One - the pre-configured, industry-specific suite of products for mid-sized companies from business solutions giant, SAP AG and its local partner for the services industry, Pebbletree Consulting - is the world`s first integrated meter billing system tailored specifically to the hi-tech distribution industry.
Pebbletree Consulting, a mySAP All-in-One partner in the professional services arena, customised mySAP All-in-One for use by Reef Business Systems (RBS), a distributor of office automation equipment - including digital copiers, fax machines and laser printers - for Konica Minolta.
The solution was adapted to include online meter billing - enabling RBS to remotely monitor the use of equipment installed on its client sites. The solution will thereby also improve RBS`s stock control, invoicing, debtor control and measurement and management of services calls as well as the accuracy and completeness of management reports.
In addition, because RBS`s Konica Minolta supplier also uses an SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, RBS`s organisational processes can be easily linked to the supplying company, enabling the two organisations to align pricing, purchasing, stock management and reporting - and massively boost efficiencies for both.
Siva Pillay, Operations Director at RBS, says the organisation had looked elsewhere for an ERP solution with meter-billing capabilities, but had found only "very limited packages". Says Pillay: "mySAP All-in-One stood head and shoulders above the others in terms of its promise to give us the operational cost-savings we were looking for, as well as providing synergies between Minolco, our supplier, and ourselves as well as with branches and our fellow distributors across the country which would not have been possible otherwise.
Also, we have over 3 000 clients to service, countrywide - and upwards of 40 service calls to handle every day. We were in urgent need of integration capabilities that would help us streamline our service and ensure we could bill our clients accurately and timeously."
But mySAP All-in-One did not, at the time, include the required meter-billing functionality.
"We checked with the larger SAP organisation to see if any other business partners elsewhere in the world were developing meter-billing capabilities, because we didn`t want to waste the customer`s time developing something we could simply buy in," says Pebbletree`s customer solutions manager, Heidi Fischer. "No one else was working on meter-billing, so we pioneered it! And now we have a product that any organisation involved in hi-tech distribution involving meter-billing can use. Installation would take no more than two months, depending on how distributed the company is."
SAP Africa`s mySAP All-in-One Solution manager, Deivan Govender, says All-in-One`s extraordinary adaptability - based on its template-driven structure - is giving rise to numerous new solutions in micro-vertical industry sectors.
"It`s not often, though, that South Africans get to a micro-vertical first, so the Reef Business Systems solution from Pebbletree is particularly gratifying. It puts South Africa - and therefore mySAP All-in-One - on the map in the office automation industry globally. That`s no small potatoes."
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