Coral Coatings poised for further growth with SAP Business One from 4most

Coral Coatings will implement SAP Business One, from 4most, to assist with current operational needs and ISO 9001 efficiencies.

By Phumeza Tontsi for 4most
Johannesburg, 24 Jun 2014

As one of Namibia's largest paint manufacturers, Coral Coatings is also its only ISO 9001 accredited paint company. With a focus on the decorative market, Coral Coatings boasts an impressive 160 products, including paints and coatings.

This makes it the country's single largest offering, over and above its exclusive distributorship of Harris paintbrushes. Priding itself on innovative and superior quality products, a competitive pricing policy together with excellent service and customer care, Coral Coatings supplies approximately 20% of the Namibian market with a key focus on wholesalers and larger contractors and developers.

"As an innovative company, we need to ensure our IT infrastructure allows us to live our company ethos of efficiency and excellent service," says Barend Koch, Director, Coral Coatings. Established in 1998, Coral Coatings found itself with a legacy of multiple software packages and limited integration. "This was resulting in less-than-optimal efficiencies," says Koch. Duplication of work due to disparate software packages was time-consuming. "Even general reports were hard work," continues Koch. No data could be presented without a degree of manual manipulation. Not only was this labour-intensive, but the propensity for human error was beginning to affect daily operations.

"We needed real-time and accurate insight into our business," says Koch. "However, this was proving challenging and slightly out of reach. We urgently needed to make a change."

Driven by the need for increased business organisation, transparency, innovation and integration, Coral Coatings began researching various vendors. "We looked at a number of solutions," says Koch. "In addition to our IT requirements, equally important was access to local support. " But, this was something not all vendors were able to provide. Coral Coatings was also wary of solutions requiring multiple third party interfaces. "We did not want to be overly reliant on too many additional interfaces," says Koch. "We were nervous that a change to any of these could potentially interfere with the stability of our infrastructure, resulting in unnecessary downtime and loss of productivity."

In short, Coral Coatings required a comprehensive and integrated solution that could improve business efficiencies, while being scalable and offering local support.

"After conducting their own research, Coral Coatings was confident that SAP Business One was the ideal answer," says Eugene Olivier, Business Development Director, 4most, a leading supplier and implementer of SAP and ERP software and technology. "But they were concerned about the cost," he continues. After examining total cost of ownership and annual licence fees, it was clear that not only was SAP Business One able to meet all requirements, but it was attractive from a cost perspective as well.

"It's a big exercise and one we don't want to have to repeat down the line," says Koch. Making the right decision is therefore very important. "We believe SAP Business One is a sound investment and one which will continue to grow with the business."

With installation currently in its first phase and 'go-live' scheduled for later this year, Coral Coatings is already seeing the benefits and potential behind their investment. "4most was able to duplicate a report in 10 seconds, which previously took a full day to generate," says Koch. As an ISO 9001 company, Coral Coatings is heavily focused on organisation, procedures and resultant customer service. "We have no doubt SAP Business One will provide the functionality required to enable us to improve in these areas by providing real-time and accurate business insight, allowing for quicker business decisions," says Koch.

Effective control measures are vital to the successful running of a business, with labour-intensive and cumbersome measures often not adhered to as stringently as they should be. The easier it is to implement and monitor the necessary control measures, the greater the uptake. "This naturally leads to an increase in efficiencies," adds Koch.

But as important as the choice of technology is, so too is finding the right vendor. "It's a significant investment and we need to know we can rely on our chosen partner for proper and timeous installation and support," says Koch. "Right from our initial meeting, we were comfortable that 4most is the right fit," he continues. "Not only do we believe we are in the right hands, but most importantly, we are confident of achieving maximum return on our investment."