Zwiesel Case Study

Zwiesel Asia Pacific Pte Ltd

Crystal Glass Maker Cuts Month-End Closing, Reduces Accounting Costs By 75 Percent

“The switch to Microsoft Dynamics dramatically cuts our month-end closing from eight to two weeks. I get full profit and loss statements by the third week of the month, accurately and in real-time."

-- Hervé Drouin, Managing Director & General Manager Asia Pacific, Zwiesel Asia Pacific Pte Ltd

Profile

Crystal glassware manufacturer Zwiesel established an Asian presence in 1999. With expansion and increasing sales, it faced increasing pressure on its back-end IT operations. Additionally, outsourced finance and auditing functions made information access difficult and slow. Zwiesel Asia wanted a flexible system to enhance management visibility, increase operational efficiencies, and enhance overall capabilities to serve its customers better. It also wanted to move away from manual spreadsheet-based systems and introduce better controls. After moving to a Microsoft Dynamics™ solution, Zwiesel Asia cut its month-end closing time from eight to two weeks, reduced previously outsourced accounting and auditing fees by 75 percent. The company now makes faster and more confident business decisions, and business productivity has increased, with better inventory control and delivery times.

Situation

Zwiesel Kristallglas AG, established in 1872, is a specialist manufacturer of lead-free crystal drinking glasses and crystal glassware to hotels and restaurants. Zwiesel Asia Pacific Pte Ltd (Zwiesel Asia) was incorporated in Singapore in 1999, to tap into an increasingly sophisticated Asian market. Zwiesel Asia contributes 10 percent of total international revenue, and 50 percent of the revenue increment for its brand business.

Zwiesel Asia is an industry leader in crystal glass production, and embarked on an aggressive international expansion strategy in 2003 with considerable investment committed to new technologies. With Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, Zwiesel Asia also has sales and marketing offices in Tokyo and Shanghai. Its success in the region is reflected in its illustrious customer list, including Singapore’s Fullerton Hotel, Dubai’s Burj Al Arab and Beijing’s Ritz Carlton.

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Organization Size: 700 employees

Organization Profile
Zwiesel Asia Pacific Pte Ltd is a subsidiary of German-based Zwiesel Kristallglas AG. It employs 700 staff worldwide to produce and distribute high quality crystal glassware.

Business Situation
Zwiesel Asia needed better financial reporting capabilities to support growth. Changes in retail operations also called for better inventory control and greater operational efficiencies.

Solution
The company switched to Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV from an existing ERP system to deliver a fast and powerful solution in financial and supply chain management, supporting local and regional operations.

Benefits
Reduces Financial Closing Time.
Empowers Decision-Making.
Enhances Operational Efficiency.
Supports Regional Expansion.

Software and Services
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0

Vertical Industries
Consumer Goods Manufacturing

Country/Region
Singapore

Solution

Zwiesel Asia had several factors in mind in evaluating the right system in order to integrate its various operations, accelerate productivity, and support management with their decision-making. After evaluating several options, it selected Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV. “We were looking for a system that was flexible and scalable enough to support our fast expanding Asian operations. Besides a strong financial management capability, we also needed integrated supply chain functionalities to improve operational efficiencies,” says Drouin.

Drouin explains, “As we were already using Microsoft® Office for our office automation needs, the user-friendly interface and familiarity of Microsoft Dynamics was reassuring. More importantly, its integrated suite of functionalities proved to be a good fit for both our business needs and also our budget.” Zwiesel Asia wanted to first lay a sound foundation with the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics in its Singapore regional headquarters, before extending the solution to its Tokyo and Shanghai operations. The implementation, which was undertaken by Alenu IT Business Solutions Pte Ltd, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, took four months and went live in October 2006.

The changeover was timely, without problems, and within budget, says Drouin. “The Alenu team impressed me with their in-depth understanding of the Microsoft Dynamics solution. Their great efforts have resulted in a very smooth implementation that is within budget and within the timeline we have set for them. We consider Alenu a valued technology partner and will certainly engage their expertise again when we are ready to expand our Microsoft Dynamics implementation across the region.”

Benefits

The move towards an enterprise-wide system reaped numerous benefits to company operations, boosting business productivity, saving outsourced accounting fees, shortening delivery turnaround, and empowering executive decision-making. Staff accepted the transition well as the new solution fits within their existing systems, and they were already fully familiar with the Microsoft interface and ease of use.

Reduces Financial Closing Time
Zwiesel Asia month-end closing used to take up to eight weeks, using spreadsheets and relying on external accounting agencies. This caused much delay in management reporting and impeded management’s ability in making fast business investment decisions. With Microsoft Dynamics, Zwiesel Asia has now brought the financial management function in-house, resulting in 75 percent savings from the previously outsourced accounting services fees. “The switch to Microsoft Dynamics has dramatically cut our month-end closing cycles from eight weeks to two weeks. Now I am able to get a full set of profit and loss statements by the third week of every month, accurately and in real-time,” comments Drouin.

Empowers Decision-Making
Financial reporting is more detailed, with the ability to report sales figures by multiple divisions, customers and brands. This enables more effective cross analysis of figures, which supports faster decision-making. “Any ad-hoc requirements for business critical data can also be fulfilled quickly, as financial data is now available in real-time,” adds Drouin.

By integrating Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV with its existing third-party point-of-sales (POS) system, sales information can now be posted directly into Microsoft Dynamics NAV at the back-end, ensuring data accuracy and eliminating the need for further manual calculations. The analytical capabilities also help Zwiesel Asia save time in analyzing its financial reports. “With our transition towards retail operations in Singapore, where we now directly handle our hospitality customers, it is important for us to have better budgetary control to lower costs of sales,” explains Drouin.

Enhances Operational Efficiency
Zwiesel Asia faces tremendous pressure to turnaround deliveries in the shortest possible time, with minimal delivery errors. Using a third party logistics partner, it received customer feedback on deliveries of wrong items and delays. Using Microsoft Dynamics to help liaise directly with factory deliveries, the company now enjoys more visibility on customer issues. It can now channel feedback on any delivery or packing errors back to the factory directly, thus helping to improve overall delivery efficiencies. With better control over the delivery operations, customer orders can also be fulfilled in shorter time with better accuracies, improving customer service and overall customer satisfaction.

“Microsoft Dynamics lends great support to our new business model of retail operations. We have gained the visibility to truly experience the problems our customers encounter and the true workings of the retail business. This gives us a competitive advantage as we look to expand aggressively into the retail operations arena,” notes Drouin.

Supports Regional Expansion
According to Drouin, implementing Microsoft Dynamics business management solutions is a “great relief” as he can now easily fulfill his corporate reporting obligations. “We see our investment in Microsoft Dynamics as an important step in laying a strong foundation for our regional expansion. We are already enjoying tremendous time and cost savings just from the initial phase of our implementation,” he says. The company will focus its attention on fine-tuning the system before extending it to the rest of the region.

“We intend to maximize the mileage we can gain from this investment and look forward to the additional capabilities we can enjoy as we scale with the Microsoft Dynamics solutions,” he concludes.

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