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Interview |
| Balsara Continues With SAP |
| Ankush Sohoni |
| Balsara Home Products Ltd., a household product
manufacturing enterprise, has been a user of SAP ERP for the
past five years, and has not shifted to any other platform since
then. V. P. Kulkarni, senior manager – IT, Balsara, spoke
to CXOtoday.com, regarding their personal experience of using
SAP. |
| CXOtoday.com: When did you implement the SAP
system that you are currently using? |
| V. P. Kulkarni
- We are currently using SAP
4.6C, which was implemented in 2002. Before this we had implemented
SAP R3 in 2000. |
| CXOtoday.com: You initially implemented SAP
R3. Did you experience any problems during implementation at
that time? |
V. P. Kulkarni
- Yes. We did have quite
a few teething problems. Most of the issues that we experienced
were related to reports generation. It was not happening correctly.
Our integrators at the time were Covensys, and we decided
to discontinue with their services. After that we chose CVSIT
to carry out the integration, and were happy with the work
that they did. |
| CXOtoday.com: Can you give a brief account of
how CVSIT has helped the company? |
| V. P. Kulkarni
- CVSIT, to begin with, re-implemented the ERP. All the
issues that had sprouted up were corrected and from there we
had only smooth sailing. They also provided another round of
training to our staff. |
| CXOtoday.com: Can you talk about your 4.6C implementation? |
| V. P. Kulkarni
- Yes. We last implemented SAP 4.6C, in 2002. We also
consolidated majorly on operations. Again, in this case, CVSIT
was responsible for the implementation. Before this we were
using SAP R3. |
| CXOtoday.com: What kind of systems were you
running prior to ERP deployment? |
| V. P. Kulkarni
- Earlier, we did not have an IT setup as such. Even
at our factory level, we had no IT initiatives. Our requirements
could not be satisfied by our legacy systems any more. In order
to keep pace our growing business needs, we implemented the
ERP. |
| CXOtoday.com: What benefits have accrued after
implementation? |
| V. P. Kulkarni
- The benefits are very noticeable in our case. We have
seen a relatively good TCO being delivered from this product.
In fact, we started seeing the benefits of this solution in
2001 itself, the year after we implemented SAP R3. It helped
us bring our inventory levels down, and also improved our planning
process. |
| CXOtoday.com: In the process of selecting an
ERP, did you evaluate other vendors? |
| V. P. Kulkarni -
Yes. We considered a number of ERP vendors such as BAAN, MFGPro,
Avalon, etc. however, we had heard a lot about SAP from our
peers, and knew that it would allow us to grow, and grow with
us. It also fulfilled the requirements that we were looking
for in an ERP. |
| CXOtoday.com: What are your future IT initiatives? |
| V. P. Kulkarni -
We are currently looking at SAP’s analytic tools such
as BIW and also APO. Apart from these, as of now we do not plan
to invest. However, as and when our requirement changes, we
may decide to implement something that will help us, at that
time. |
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