Betagen revamps data solution

       The economic downturn has been a good time for business to redesign its process for better efficiency, leading to 15-20 percent annual growth, according to Tom Van Der Lee, Chief Finance Officer of Betagen, a producer of fermented milk and yoghurt in Thailand.
       Under the company's old system, many tasks were performed manually and data could not be structured properly, making it difficult to produce relevant and reliable management information.
       Betagen decided to implement SAP Business All-in-One solution to replace its old proprietary system. The new business management solution helped to integrate sales forecasting, production planning and logistics throughout its supply chain as a single, integrated solution providing a unified view of operations.
       This provides good management information critical for business growth. It also make-to-stock production by weekly update sales forecasts, with orders coming in every 30 minutes via Electronic Data Interchange automatically checked for pricing and credit. The sales orders are turned into a distribution order, and as the transportation is planned the warehouse prepares the pick up slips. The process from order to delivery takes between 2 to 36 hours depending on order lead time.
       This has given the company full visibility of production costs, including variations down to the batch level. The result has lead the company to increase working capital by increasing the inventory turnover rate by 12 percent and reducing days sale from 31 to 29.5 days as well as reducing the head count by 50 percent both in administration and finance.
       The new system will support future integration with the Dutch Dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina, a major shareholder which helps the entire group of companies to leverage better information for global procurement. "In our experience, such projects may not involve high investment but if implemented on too big a scale, it risks failure and you get nothing in return. This is different from purchasing a car if you did not like it you can resell it. The important factors for projects like these are finding the right partners, commitment from the management as well as employee co-operation," the CFO explained.