South African Tourism, the national destination marketing authority for South Africa, has successfully implemented Oracle`s e-Business Suite Special Edition - a suite of business applications designed specifically for companies that have 10 to 500 employees.
This R2 million implementation, managed by EOH`s Oracle business unit Navigor, has dispelled the scalable mid-market solution myth by successfully meeting specific mid-market customer needs, while also proving that consolidation, integration and improving overall operating efficiencies remain top IT priorities for 2006.
As an Oracle Certified Advantage Partner in South Africa and Oracle`s top implementation partner for five consecutive years, Navigor was the partner of choice for SA Tourism.
According to Navigor, SA Tourism had disparate systems that did not provide adequate control of reports and multi-currency and information systems. The group`s financial management information was manually consolidated, which was time-consuming and subject to error and intervention.
With a head office in Sandton and nine regional offices in USA, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, India, Australia, Japan and Italy, SA Tourism needed a financial system across these business units that would facilitate automated consolidation of financial information, increase operational efficiencies, provide efficient reporting structures for management information and improve month-end close processes.
"Our vision was to implement an integrated and appropriately positioned Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition (SE) Financial and Human Resources (HR) solution that would provide SA Tourism management with much needed consolidated strategic business information," says Johan van der Walt, chief financial officer, SA Tourism.
Identifying gaps in its system integration, SA Tourism chose to perform a thorough needs analysis among its 130 international users to identify further areas for improvement.
"This provided us with an excessive wish list," says Mogale Maloma, financial manager at SA Tourism. "We also consulted with other tourism organisations seeking best practice and found Tourism Australia very similar to South Africa, with almost the same requirements."
After a formal tender process, SA Tourism selected Oracle and implementation partner, Navigor. Its wish list included both business and technology goals. As a business, the implementation across the local and international business units should ensure compliance with company governance requirements, standardise the information technology infrastructure and ultimately improve client service delivery.
"The primary business requirements were to improve quality of information when it is required, generate accurate and efficient business reports, and implement an HR management system," comments Kevin Lubbe, managing director, Navigor.
Underpinning this is the need for a scaleable technology solution, which is vital to a mid-market customer with plans to grow. Improved IT access and security control as a result of SA Tourism`s remote offices accessing the system day and night, as well as reduced cost and complexity of the IT infrastructure.
Lubbe says SA Tourism also wanted consolidation and one point of entry system. Due to its previous batch system, SA Tourism had to deal with delays in reporting. The new system provided much quicker results and decision-making.
"The HR department was able to focus on macro issues as opposed to micro, which made a big difference to them," says Lubbe.
"It is vital for support functions, like finance and HR, to add value to an organisation. To do this effectively, SA Tourism required automated systems," says Van der Walt. A good example is procurement, he says. "This is complex at SA Tourism because of our foreign exchange. We have to reallocate foreign surpluses on a regular basis. By having an automated process, we can do this quicker and managers are thus able to take more control of their budgets as they are more aware of the sums available. By simply moving away from a manual approval process, managers also receive approval in a shorter space of time and can make better informed decisions. In addition, managers can approve orders anywhere in the world via the Internet."
Although the system is fully Web-enabled, Navigor provided customised training at EOH`s head office.
"We provided face to face training to all its users using SA Tourism-specific requirements," says Lubbe. He says Navigor remains close to SAT and continues to assist with the migration process and additional training required. There are also plans for additional phases providing SA Tourism with even more automation and improved payroll, project management and CRM systems.
Lubbe says to succeed in the mid-market space, all parties involved need to adopt a true partnership approach. He believes this is one of the many reasons why the SA Tourism implementation was successful.
"SA Tourism was open to advice with regards to its infrastructure and ready to invest in an upgrade. The decision-makers were always readily available for discussions, which ensured timeous decisions were taken and the implementation flowed smoothly."
Van der Walt says SA Tourism is upbeat about the implementation. "It is quite simple. We asked for the implementation to be done in a short space of time and that is exactly what Navigor did. Financials kicked off early in July and were implemented at the beginning of August with a month`s support. HR started during the first week of September and was concluded in December with ongoing support provided."
Supporting his decision to partner with Navigor, he says the company`s competitive pricing and BEE credentials were impressive and added to its already impressive credentials.
"We have made great strides. The project was delivered on time and within budget and has enabled us to consolidate our management information which has already resulted in improved business processes. SA Tourism certainly looks forward to more," concludes Van der Walt.
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