Shamas Motor Spares of Nairobi has grown rapidly in the last few years, and faced the challenge of many fast-growing SMEs - the need to shift focus to back-office processes that would enable better customer focus and a more efficient business operation.
Shamas Motor Spares turned to SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) Business One to help the company protect and grow its market share. Business One allows Shamas Motor Spares improved inventory tracking and enables detailed reporting in order to analyse performance at various levels across the company.
Shamas, with over 35 years of experience, is a leading supplier of automotive parts to the East African region. Its phenomenal growth demanded a shift from the strictly sales-oriented software it was using to an integrated business management solution. Its goal was to track inventory more effectively, increase customer satisfaction through faster order fulfilment, and completely automate the sales process.
Shamas was also looking for software that could help it generate reports by the minute, instantly providing a 360-degree view of operations. “We wanted a solution that could synchronise our sales order and inventory processes and enable us to analyse inventory. We needed a clearer picture of our stock to determine what was moving quickly, slowly, or not at all,” says Azim Deen, managing director of Shamas.
Apart from its scalability and functionality, a key benefit of Business One is that it can be deployed rapidly. After a short 16-week implementation, Shamas began to see results almost immediately. “Using SAP Business One, we have streamlined our operations, saving time and increasing customer satisfaction,” says Michael Gachie, IT manager at Shamas. Additionally, the SAP software has reduced the time the company spends locating inventory and invoicing customers, says Humphrey Ng'ang'a, a sales executive at Shamas. “SAP Business One is simple to use,” he says. “With its extensive search functionality, items are much easier to locate, hence users are much more efficient and can make better use of their time.”
Being a motor spares company, Shamas has an inventory of thousands of different parts. Shamas was also looking for a software solution that could integrate with its radio frequency identification (RFID) tools for tagging and tracking parts; SAP Business One met this requirement as well. Strong inventory management functionality was also a criterion. SAP Business One helps users better manage inventory operations, including picking, packing, delivery, and billing.
“Shamas Motor Spares and many similar companies in Kenya have benefited from the SAP Business One ERP solution. The unique ability of SAP Business One allows users to capture information in the customer relationship manager (CRM) module of the software and collaborate with the logistics and financial business processes. This seamless integration provides users with competitive advantage in managing their business operations,” says Nazir Jadavji, Head of SAP Business One in East Africa.
For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom.
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