T.V. Sundram Upgrades ERP for Profits

However, the largest automobile distribution company in India was running on legacy systems. It desperately needed an online real-time business information system for its distributed line of business. V. Sundar, CIO, T.V. Sundram Iyengar and Sons, explains, "Marketing unit heads needed to be informed on a daily basis about where they stood with respect to their monthly targets. They also needed the collection status to meet their targets. More importantly, we also wanted to improve our revenue."

The only way he could achieve this was to do away with legacy systems and move to an integrated and flexible ERP set up. Project AX was just that. "Many of the existing business processes were enhanced and automated as part of the integrated system. Thus, the solution includes inventory management, reporting and analytics and integration with the company's existing financial management system," says Sundar.

Project AX handles about 175 concurrent users at any point of time, 3,000 sales invoices and 4,000 automobile part dispatches in a day.  "The system also sends out automatically generated daily sales performance charts broken up according to marketing units," he says. This helps sales personnel plan efficiently and also enhances decision-making.

But, users needed to be trained and urged to move to the new integrated system. Module-wise user manuals and focused class room training with hands-on sessions were provided.

Today, sales turnover per month has increased to Rs 27 crore from a previous average of Rs 21 crore. "This is due to the daily sales order analysis which shows stock availability in various stages at the warehouses and thus the estimated dispatches for the day. This information allows the business to increase daily billing and dispatches," says Sundar.

The project also saved 3,545 man hours per month because of automation, amounting to a recurring saving of Rs 31.6 lakh per year. The automatic sales performance chart bolstered the competitive spirit among different units, leading to overall higher performance.

The Person Behind It

V. Sundar, CIO

T.V. Sundram Iyengar & Sons

“The automatic sales performance chart bolstered the competitive spirit of different units, leading to higher performance.”