BRISTOL IMPROVES CASH COLLECTIONS WITH MICROSOFT BUSINESS SOLUTIONS - NAVISION

“Navision has helped us to manage our business better with more tools and reports from the system. It has also given us instant access to information that we want, and has helped us make better business decisions.”

Chow Lek Keen, Financial Controller, Bristol Group.

Bristol is one the top five office furniture manufacturers in Malaysia. As Bristol’s business grew, its locally developed enterprise resource planning system had great difficulty coping with the rapid expansion.

This prompted Bristol to replace it with something much better - Microsoft Business Solutions – Navision. Bristol chose Navision because of its extensive functionalities, ease of customization and tight integration with other Microsoft applications.

Amongst other things, Navision has helped Bristol to speed up the closing of financial accounts and improve cash flow management. Being highly flexible and scalable, Navision is able to meet Bristol’s rapidly growing business needs.

Situation
In just over two decades, Bristol has worked its way into the top five office furniture manufacturers in Malaysia. Having established its leadership position in the Malaysian market, Bristol has extended its presence into overseas markets.

Established in 1981, Bristol exports to countries like Hong Kong, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Mauritius, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Chile and Mexico.

Bristol’s manufacturing plant in Balakong, Selangor, produces thousands of quality products daily. Its products can be found in many of Malaysia’s major property developments. For example, Bristol secured a contract to deliver some 22,000 units of its furniture to Malaysia’s new administrative capital of Putrajaya (Parcels C & D).

Bristol’s business philosophy is based on a customer-focused business approach and concentrates its efforts on product design, product pricing, space planning consultancy, project management and project financing.

As part of its effort to improve business operations and customer service, Bristol deployed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system developed by a local company several years ago. However, this solution had a number of drawbacks and failed to meet the company’s expectations.
The major problem was that Bristol had difficulty getting accurate financial information from the system. And this impacted its business as its cash flow position was adversely affected. The solution had provided inaccurate debtors information causing a backlog of inconsistent debtor records of up to five years. This invariably made the collection process difficult and significantly delayed the closing of the group’s accounts.

The solution also could not cope with Bristol’s rapid business expansion. According to Bristol Group’s Financial Controller Chow Lek Keen, the solution had limitations in providing more detailed business information and management reports. This hampered the management’s ability to make timely and accurate decisions to stay ahead of the competition. “When we can’t tally the information, this lowered our confidence in the solution,” he adds.

The system also could not be accessed remotely by its subsidiaries based in Sungai Besi and Penang. This meant that reports and information such as sales, collections and products details from the subsidiaries had to be re-keyed in at Bristol’s headquarters in Balakong.

“This was inefficient, time consuming and meant that inaccuracies could creep in,” says Chow. The solution also could not easily integrate with Bristol’s other applications and support from the software vendor was less than satisfactory, Chow adds.

Solution
This prompted Bristol, which had used the system for just three years, to replace it with something better. After evaluating ERP systems from various vendors, Bristol chose the one which best fits its business requirements: Microsoft Business Solutions – Navision.

The migration to Navision started in February 2005 and was completed one-and-a-half months later. Microsoft Certified Partner IMetrix Sdn Bhd (iMetrix) was engaged to help deploy the Navision solution at Bristol’s headquarters and its subsidiaries. Currently, Bristol uses Navision’s Financials module.

One of the main reasons why Bristol choose Navision was because of its extensive functionalities, ease of customization and tight integration with other Microsoft applications, Chow explains.
“Navision has many features and functionalities which other solutions (in the same class) do not have. It is also very flexible and has superb integration capabilities,” he comments.

In addition, he adds that because Navision was a Microsoft solution, Bristol was assured of strong support from Microsoft and its partners. In fact, he points out that the migration to Navision proceeded smoothly because of the assistance from IMetrix which provided very high quality consultancy and support services.

According to iMetrix Director Lim Tan Quee, the Navision implementation process for Bristol was speeded up by over 50 per cent because iMetrix adopted the Magian implementation methodology which has been successfully used in over 350 project sites worldwide.

“Usually, it would have taken 3 to 4 months to migrate to Navision for a business of Bristol’s size,” she adds.

Benefits

Faster Closing of Financial Accounts
Bristol lacked confidence in the accuracy of the previous financial solution because reports often did not tally. This meant that financial information had to be rechecked and this delayed the closing of accounts. With Navision, this is no longer an issue as all the financial reports are accurately generated.

By ensuring accurate reporting and eliminating manual processes such as re-keying in of data, Navision has enabled Bristol to cut the time needed to close the accounts by at least 30 per cent.

Running Navision on the Windows platform enables Bristol to leverage on functionalities such as Microsoft Terminal Services which allow the subsidiaries to communicate via remote access with the Bristol headquarters. This means that the subsidiaries can input business information directly into the Navision server, eliminating the need to re-key in such information subsequently.
“We save a lot of time and because we do not have to re-key in the data, the possibility of error has been reduced significantly,” explains Chow.

Improves Cash Flow Management
Navision has also helped Bristol to dramatically improve its cash flow management. By speeding up the debt reconciliation process, Bristol is able to take the necessary action to improve its collections.

Unlike the previous system, Navision allows for unrestricted entry of previous year transactions and this enabled Bristol to finally clear up a backlog of inconsistent debtor records stretching back some five years.

According to Chow, the new solution provides better reporting and a more detailed and accurate view of customers as it allows for comprehensive capture of information.

For example, Navision enables detailed debtor information to be entered into the system and this facilitates early detection of problem accounts so that corrective actions can be taken.

Navision’s superior reporting capability means that Bristol can now generate profit and loss statements for individual products, and this represents a tremendous competitive advantage for Bristol. In a highly competitive market, the wealth of business information provided by Navision enables Bristol’s management to make faster and better decisions to respond to changing market conditions.

Very User Friendly
Bristol is also pleased that the change of its backend system has not been disruptive and problematic for those using the system. The Navision solution is used by about 15 users from various departments. “They are happy with new system as it is very user friendly and they could make the switch quite easily,” Chow confirms.

“Because Navision is a solution from Microsoft, it is obviously very easy to use. Our users are very familiar with the Windows-based interface,” he explains.

“It is very flexible and easily customized – users can just drag and drop the data, drill down and move or hide fields,” he adds. In addition, extensive training resources are also available online as well as from Microsoft partners, Chow notes.

Flexible and Scalable
Navision’s flexibility and scalability means that Bristol is able to extend the solution’s functionalities to meet growing business needs rather than having to install the whole suite of products all at once.

“Because it is modular, we can easily add on more modules as our business expands. Navision grows with our business,” Chow explains. In fact, Bristol already has plans to deploy the Logistics, Sales and Distribution modules soon.

Bristol also does not have to worry that adding more modules will add to the complexity of the backend administration. “Because it is modular based, the new modules are fully integrated. So when we key in transactions into one module, there is no need to re-key it into other modules. There is an integrated view of the whole system,” he adds.

Chow concludes: “Navision has helped us to manage our business better with more tools and reports from the system. It has given us instant access to information that we want, and has helped us make better business decisions.”

Overview
Country: Malaysia
Industry: Furniture Manufacturing

Customer Profile
In just over two decades, Bristol has worked its way into the top five office furniture manufacturers in Malaysia. Established in 1981, Bristol exports to countries like Hong Kong, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Mauritius, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Chile and Mexico.

Business Situation
Bristol deployed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system developed by a local company several years ago. The major problem was that Bristol had difficulty getting accurate financial information from the system. And this impacted its business as its cash flow position was adversely affected. The solution had provided inaccurate debtors information causing a backlog of inconsistent debtor records of up to five years. This invariably made the collection process difficult and significantly delayed the closing of the group’s accounts. The solution also could not cope with Bristol’s rapid business expansion.

The system was prone to errors and this adversely affected its cash flow position and delayed the closing of financial accounts.

Solution
Bristol replaced the old system with Microsoft Business Solutions – Navision.
Currently, Bristol uses Navision’s Financials module and plans to deploy additional Navision modules as the need arises.

Benefits
- Faster Closing of Financial
Accounts
- Improves Cash Flow
Management
- User Friendly
- Flexible and Scalable

For More Information
To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com/malaysia

For other case studies in this series, visit
www.microsoft.com/malaysia/
business/casestudies

For more information about Bristol’s products and services, call +6(03) 79802888
or Fax: +6(03)79801222