Vasanth & Co Deploys SAP ECC 6.0 For Speedy Processing

Vasanth & Co, a consumer electronics retailer based in the south has a turnover of over $85 million. The company has 50 stores spread across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Pondicherry.

The consumer electronic retailing industry operates on very thin margin and high investment. To establish an edge over competition and to better negotiate with their clients, the company felt the need to have timely and accurate data at their fingertips while making decisions.

Vijay Kumar, director at Vasanth & Co was clear from the beginning about the requirement of a software solution that would integrate with their areas of operation and give them the desired results. Chennai-based SEAL Infotech implemented mySAP ERP ECC 6.0 for them over a period of eight months to achieve this.

More from Biztech

Future Group - Reliance Retail Deal approved by CCI RBI ban on cryptocurrencies takes effect; prohibition could force investors to tap the black market

Sustaining durability

As Vasanth & Co operated in remote satellite towns, as well as major cities, their data was split between manual records and in house software. The stores at Chennai had developed an in house Point of Sale (POS) software with which they could generate sales reports. Finance and accounts were done using Tally. Inventory was tabulated on Excel sheets, which had issues like accuracy and timely updating.

This retail chain handles multiple brands and targets customers with varied income brackets. In the ERP software, they wanted an inventory management module to help them plan store-wise, item-wise, high value stock across all income groups and promotions from the companies; a sales module to track their sales across brands, categories, store wise, credit card wise, and through exchange of old items; and a finance and accounts module to enable them track various types of payment, part payment, payment through exchange, advertising budget and manufacturer’s credit during participation in schemes.

Hence, the company deployed the SD, MM, FI and HR modules.

Implementing the solution

The company decided to implement the solution in two phases, on the Windows XP OS, SQL 2005 and sonic firewall for networking. The first phase, which started on the 21st of August, covered 14 stores across all three states.

According to S. Ravishankar, project manager and functional consultant from SEAL Infotech, “Understanding the business requirement was a speedy process as we had a retail background and Vijay Kumar had a clear objective as well.”

As the project went underway and the configuration was done and tested, the implementation procedure suffered a setback. The production server went down, delaying the implementation by about two months. Ravishankar mentions, “This happened just before the master data had to be loaded and we did lose our momentum as a result.”

However, the issue was sorted out and the implementation went live on 5th May 2007. There was customisation with regard to mapping transactions, payments, negative billings, etc. through POS inbound IDOcs.

The company identified some key users and recruited more people for the maintenance of the system. Training them is key as they didn’t have a legacy system. It may take some time for them to get used to the new working style and methodology, observes Kumar.

The next stage

Vasanth & Co. has plans of doubling the number of stores to about a 100 in the next 3-4 years. Many retail CIOs have felt the need to have a robust IT system that would support up scaling, and foreseeing that, Vasanth has taken a step in the right direction.

With the investment in the first phase being close to Rs 2 crore, phase 2, which hasn’t started yet presents it’s own challenges. It is cited to cover 28 stores including those in satellite towns, where certain facilities like computers are yet to be installed. SEAL is ready to start the implementation as soon as Vasanth & Co gives the go ahead. It is expected to take about 60 working days for the complete roll out.