Trisula Group Moves Towards Vision 2000 With Microsoft Exchange

Tying a global garment and textile company together with an enterprise-wide solution 

The Trisula Group in Indonesia started as a textile company by Tirta Suherlan in Bandung around 1968. Now almost 30 years later, the group has grown from a 10-employee company, into 16 textile, garment and apparel companies with an international presence that employs more than 6,000 people.

Its Singapore representative office acts both as a textile sales office and garment supplier to retail wholesalers and retail clothing stores. One of its signature labels is the highly stylised Jack Niklaus sporting wear.

Meeting the Vision 2000 challenge
Under the present leadership of its President Director, Mr. Kiky Suherlan, the Trisula Group is committed to bracing itself for the challenges of the 21st century. He has outlined several principles, now known as the Trisula Vision 2000 Masterplan. Its mission is to remain competitive by transforming its key businesses into a vertically integrated textile and fashion industry. Ultimately its intention is to provide good products and services, made by good people.

Mr. Suherlan recognises the potential of IT as an agent to provide the strategic innovation and advantage it needed to excel in the textile and garment industry. He commissioned SQL View, a Singapore-based company specialising in business and IT consultancy, together with the Group's IT arm to realise his vision.

Before any solution was implemented, Dr. Paul Goh, Consultant at SQL View, and Mr. Marcus Brotoatmodjo, IT Director of the Trisula Group, drew the IT architecture and strategy for the Trisula Group. The core purpose was to re-align business strategy to IT infrastructure. Among others, they proposed, with full senior management endorsement, that Microsoft products form the core IT platform for the entire Trisula Group.

Dr. Goh drew up a business process reengineering (BPR) plan. He spent time understanding the various operational functions in the holding company, the garment factories in Bandung and Jakarta as well as the sales office all over the world, including Singapore. 'There was a real need to attain world class standards, and improve overall productivity, reduce duplicity, and allocate the right resources within the various units of the textile companies,' emphasised Mr. Brotoatmodjo. And Microsoft Exchange was used as the platform to effect these sweeping changes.

Streamlining Operations, Better Communications
According to Dr. Goh, the ultimate aim of the BPR exercise was to ensure the highest work effectiveness possible. Besides streamlining broken and unrelated procedures, radical changes were also introduced. Technology featured highly in Dr. Goh's solution. He proposed to implement a proper workflow process to be used by all production supervisors and mid-level management. It connects them to various operational sites in the world via an enterprise-wide network, using Microsoft Exchange as its backbone. The Singapore office benefited by being directly linked to its head office to track sales order and product deliveries.

Running Exchange with the Ultimus Workflow software corrected a number of outmoded practices, and the benefits were almost immediate. 'The product cycle used to span over 6 to 8 months, from research and development to weaving the finished garments,' said Dr. Goh. 'By automating the business processes, it created a proper bottom-to-top workflow supply whilst eradicating repetitive daily tasks.' This resulted in a reallocation of labour from sales to customer service, contributing directly to the increased revenue of the company.

Greater Accountability and Responsibility
 The workflow solution, called TOPS (Trimex Order Processing System), is positioned as a strategic information system. It was to assist the sales staff and customers in knowing the exact status of their orders and to improve the service level to worldwide clients. The system allows management to track sales and staff performances, even when they are away from the office. And the speed at which reports can be automatically generated today empowers faster and better decisions. Previously, it took the General Manager one week to generate these reports using Microsoft Excel. 'Now it's less than a day,' beamed Mr. Brotoatmodjo.

With the computerised system, sales contracts can be sent and accepted from anywhere in the world via the Internet. The sales staffs react almost instantly to any updates via the Internet, thereby reducing IDD charges and increasing a sense of accountability and responsibility to its end customers. It is a vast improvement over its previous passive sales strategy. Microsoft Exchange, Mr. Brotoatmodjo maintained, is one of the instruments to leverage the extra level of commitment to serve the customer better.

Making Networking Easier
TOPS runs on a Pentium 166 Hewlett-Packard server with 128 MB of RAM and 4 GB of storage. Besides Exchange and Ultimus, the solution includes Microsoft SQL Server as well. 'And it all runs on Windows NT, one of the most reliable and truly scaleable network operating system,' adds Mr. Brotoatmodjo. 'I chose Exchange as it was the platform of the future. Beyond e-mail and calendaring, we could get the whole company working closer and more efficiently.'

According to Mr. Brotoatmodjo, the vision of his President Director is synonymous with the technological rollout of the sales automation system; that business should be time- and space-independent.

Improving The Bottom Line
Mr. Brotoatmodjo is optimistic that the system would later be integrated into the database and inventory systems, and be extended into the finance and human resource departments. 'There is this growing mindset that Microsoft and its range of software products stands for reliability and quality.' By embracing Microsoft's openness, flexibility and interoperability, it has dramatically improved Trisula Group's bottom line.

So when you next wear a Jack Nicklaus branded T-shirt and take a swing at the golfing greens, think of how a leading edge technology provider like Microsoft and a pioneer of Indonesia's largest garment and apparel company, the Trisula Group, have in common.