Integrated System Enables 30% Boost In Efficiency For Genesis

Established in 2001, Genesis Colors (Genesis) is a global fashion conglomerate that spearheaded corporatisation in the Indian fashion industry. Besides premium designer labels such as Satya Paul and Samsaara the company has also brought together a diverse range of international luxury brands - from Paul Smith to Just Cavalli and the highly glamorous Jimmy Choo - to India. Relying on a single integrated system bringing about standardisation and a single version of the truth has ensured that the taste of fashion and luxury doesn’t turn bitter for Genesis Colors.

No Single Version Of The Truth

Currently, Genesis owns 50 exclusive stores, across 19 major Indian cities. It also retails its brands through more than 130 outlets and has established an extensive global distribution network. As the network was expanding it became evident to the management at Genesis that they couldn’t possibly pull through for long with disparate systems. “We cannot always have parallel systems running. At some point of time, we had to push through to a single solution,” says Jyoti Narula, MD, Genesis Colors Pvt. Ltd.

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The biggest challenge facing Genesis was there was no single version of the truth. In this era of businesses going borderless, it becomes vital for enterprise to function as an entity. Transparency and integrity are key here. At Genesis too it was critical that every department in the organisation have the same set of information at any point in time.

Need For Visibility And Streamlined Processes

The need of the hour was a solution that allowed better inventory planning and control, and better reporting across all functions - from the factory to the branches and outlets. Genesis required a single integrated system to manage not only accounts and finance but overall business processes as well.

“When an organisation grows, an integrated solution is expected, which can be a tunnel for information from demand to supply to customers in seamless fashion. It leads to a more clear visibility of information and streamlining of process and operations. This ultimately helps in bringing efficiency from people standpoint, and better decision-making from management standpoint,” says Sanjay Kumar Pal, Director, Microsoft Business Solutions.

ERP To The Rescue

According to Narula, the company carried out extensive research to figure out what would suit their business as well as support growth over the next 8-10 years. The search ended with the Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform. “Our research showed that the NAV solution was suited best to our business from a long term perspective,” he explains.

The Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution was implemented in multiple phases – starting with the corporate office in Gurgaon, then moving on to sales showrooms and warehouses across the country and subsequently, to job work locations.

The modules implemented were Accounts, Finance, Sales and Distribution, Inventory Management, and Payables and Receivables. While all the standard features of the ERP system were implemented, some unique customisations applicable to the fashion retail industry were also made.

As important as the system’s implementation was the need to build the right mindset among employees for the system’s acceptance and effective usage. “We had to initially play with the thought process of employees to deal with the new solution. There are many nuances which are not apparent unless you take the functionality, apply it and have informed managers to use the tool – the tool is only as useful as how much use you put it to,” says Narula.

Bottom-Up Approach

The solution is being used within Genesis across all business functions, with each function using this tool in their own way.

All business functions use this tool in their own way. The retail team can know what product is selling, what is not, what is the stock, what inventory is held where, etc. They can see which inventory is selling in which part of the country and how to swap it around to the company’s advantage. From a different perspective, the production team can use it to see the stock status of the material or the stock lying with various vendors.

At the end of it, MIS allows top management to take decisions, which otherwise would be a tedious process involving data recording, collection, verification, collating spreadsheets, and then adding all that up to come to some sort of conclusion.

What the top management sees is the culmination of efforts put in by everybody. “It has got to be a bottom-up approach. If the tool is not used effectively at the lower rungs, it will just be garbage in, garbage out and the top management will not be able to gain any advantage,” warns Narula.

Single Platform Rendering Multi-Dimensional View

Once implemented and the employee connect established, the solution did bring in a slew of benefits for Genesis.

The major benefit that was observed, informs Narula, was the ability to cut and slice the data. “We could now see the business from different perspectives and were able to analyse it – all this while having a single platform all across,” he adds.

The solution has enhanced Genesis’ reporting capabilities by 30 percent and also its efficiency by 30 percent. It has further helped exert greater control over all factories and outlets, thereby streamlining inventory planning and control and has also helped consolidate financial information.

“Decisions can be made even without an ERP tool. The ease, convenience and accuracy of the information that comes out is what makes a tool important. It adds authority to the data you are looking at, making decisions faster and more reliable,” concludes Narula.