KSA based Al Zuhair Group has become the first company in the region to go live with a web hosted ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). The solution comprises of Sage CS/3 ERP web hosted at the Comtrust Data Center, Abu Dhabi and accessed remotely by users in Saudi Arabia via the Internet.
The Al Zuhair Group has a turnover of over SR 100 million and comprises of Electronic Equipment Marketing Company (EEMCO), Construction Services (CONSECO) and OMEGA Engineering and operates from multiple locations in KSA. It is also considering setting up regional offices outside KSA to support its expanding operations in neighbouring countries.
Al Zuhair faced its share of challenges maintaining a corporate information system, costs were relatively high and retaining IT staff was a problem. Talal Al Zuhair, Partner, began looking for a solution to cut the cost and complexity of maintaining The Group’s corporate information system. He also wanted a solution that could be cost effectively extended to new geographic locations.
Al Zuhair had been satisfactorily using Sage CS/3 for a number of years and decided to begin their search for a solution with Sage Middle East. Marc Van der Ven, Managing Director of Sage Middle East, suggested Al Zuhair try web hosting its ERP application to reduce overheads and expansion costs. Some of the concerns with web hosting were Internet performance and security. Though sceptical of the idea, Talal decided to do a trial run as the benefits far outweighed the concerns. The Group could save US $ 50,000 to 60,000 a year, about 30% of annual group IT spend. Sage CS/3 was loaded on a web server in the UAE and Al Zuhair began testing the use of the application via the Internet. This went on for 6 months when the in-house system was run in parallel with the web system. Concerns regarding a flaky Internet connection were addressed during this period and Al-Zuhair decided to go live with the web-hosted application.
With the new web hosted system, employees in the field can log onto the system at any time to access and upload information. Mobile salespeople can access inventory and other information on the move. Talal as well, who travels most of the time, just hooks onto the internet with his notebook to access the system. He says that irrespective of whether he’s in the UK or a neighbouring Gulf country he is now able to exactly what’s happening with the business.
Short of powering off the web server, most administration and configuration tasks can be done remotely. If Al Zuhair decides to open a new office, new users can log on to the Internet and access the system once they have been set up. There no need to install a network and configure a local server. Occasionally, the capacity of the web server is hiked to cope with the additional users. All this means, the time taken for a new location to be functional is drastically reduced.
Al-Zuhair Group has out-sourced all system maintenance and administrative tasks. This has been made easier with the application being web hosted. The result is a reduction in the number of internal IT staff and declining operational costs. All is not perfect though and some trade off’s have been made. The system performance is slower than before but does not interfere with the mission critical nature of the work it does. One surprising fact is that the entire solution runs on normal dial up connection. The reason why speed is acceptable - only changes made to a file are passed been an end user PC and the Web Server. This requires minimal bandwidth to travel across the Internet.
Another benefit linked to reduce dependence on internal IT staff is a reduction in time taken by new staff to learn the job. Talal feels this is a big benefit at a time when retaining IT staff is difficult and recruiting new ones an even bigger challenge.
The bottom line, Talal says is that his customers & partners are feeling the benefits too. During meetings with them, his sales team is able to promise delivery dates, analyse sales trends, commit to promotional activities and discuss outstanding credit, with little preparation. Just log on to the Internet and access the data. This has actually driven revenue up and put a smile on his customer’s faces.
