SAP Business One implementation for Beston Global Food Company

Beston Global Food Company Limited (Beston) is out to change the emerging global imbalance between food demand and supply around the globe. Their objective is to invest in well established companies in Australia and globally that produce food and beverage products capable of capitalising on the demand opportunities emerging from the exponential growth in the world's population, and specifically from the ‘dining boom' taking place across Asia.

The successful system go-live at two recently purchased dairy factories in South Australia is the first step in a global SAP Business One roll-out for ASX-listed Beston Global Food Company. Located at Murray Bridge and Jervois, the factories principally produce cheese and whey powder.

Challenge

Beston chose SAP as their platform to enforce common processing across their global operations.

Rick Kozikowski, Financial Controller at Beston subsidiary, Beston Pure Foods, says the decision to implement SAP Business One allows him to maintain close control of the financial and manufacturing processes at the two dairy factories.

Kozikowski, who has worked at the Jervois site for over 10 years, says he had previous experience of SAP Business One and DXC Oxygen and was confident that they would deliver a functionally rich solution to a high standard.

Solution

“People tell you that SAP is complicated and difficult to implement. Partnering with DXC Oxygen we have proved that wrong. Using ‘Fast Forward’, a rapid implementation methodology, we managed to get the factories up and running in six weeks, and we are now rolling out the platform to our operations in eight countries around the world.”

“SAP Business One is a truly integrated business management suite that handles all our key financial processes, and it is giving us good visibility into manufacturing as well. Thanks to SAP, anything we make is recorded through a production order, so when the item is complete we know exactly the costs and quantities of all the materials that went into making it.”

Kozikowski says he appreciates the single source of truth the integrated system provides.

“The best thing for me is that you can track everything through the system. Depositing money into the bank, paying a vendor, loading a truck, producing a delivery docket and allocating stock out against a particular customer – no matter what the process is, it is all recorded within SAP.”

Beston is currently implementing the solution at its head office in Adelaide as well as its operations in China, Thailand and Vietnam. Realising the benefits to the company of quicker processing and data analysis, Beston is implementing the solution on SAP’s HANA platform.

Result

The breadth and depth of functionality means Kozikowski can answer almost anything that is asked of him.

“Financially, any query that comes to me I can respond to by accessing the information in SAP. It’s the difference between downloading and manipulating data in spreadsheets and producing a quick report from SAP. It is quicker and more reliable to do the latter.”

He says at audit time SAP comes into its own. “It provides a comprehensive transaction history. If, for example, we need to provide any documents, such as invoices, they are immediately available, along with the dates they were entered into the system.”

DXC Oxygen has integrated the SAP software with Beston’s existing traceability and anti-counterfeit technology platform, Oziris. Jawhari says everything the company produces has anti-counterfeit protection which is fully traceable from the consumer end. “The integration of the two systems means we can offer customers 100% safe and authentic produce, traceable down to its raw materials and processing details. We will be rolling this integration out through our seafood, meat, health and beverage verticals shortly.”

Beston is also considering implementing SAP’s material requirements planning (MRP) capability in the future. “That would give us even greater control over our materials, planning and production,” says Kozikowski. “It provides a granular level of insight into the business which allows for improved decision-making, especially when it comes to budgeting and forecasting.”

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