Taking a technological leap forward into the cloud
Client:
Deague GroupChallenge:
- Systems becoming unsupported and expensive to maintain
- Siloed information slowing down speed and reliability of financial reporting
- Need to bring all recording and reporting needs into one place for one source of truth
Solution:
- SAP Business ByDesign, a tailored cloud ERP solution that offers integrated functionality across finance, CRM, reporting and billing processes
- Cloud-based deployment providing anytime and anywhere access to systems
- Amalgamation of reporting tools, and implementation of specialist billing process
Results:
- One source of truth available to all business units
- Integrated system is less costly to maintain and operate
- Real-time reporting provides better visibility of business performance
Deague Group is a privately owned Australian property development company that has successfully developed over 12,000 commercial, residential and hotel buildings. It operates primarily in Victoria but has recently developed properties in Queensland and South Australia. Founded in 1859, Deague operates two key divisions – a property and development arm that drives new property purchases, and its company group which comprises over 30 different operational businesses.
Challenge
Following the divestment of a number of its hotels, Deague Group decided the time was right to upgrade its entire technology infrastructure as there was a need to get rid of old systems which were rapidly becoming outdated and unsupported.
One of the project’s key business drivers was the desire to ensure all Deague’s business units could see one source of truth, from one system that integrated all its core business processes. The organisation was determined to go down the cloud path, because they wanted the flexibility of anytime, anywhere access to their systems and saw the project as an opportunity to take a technological leap forward, by implementing a future-proofed enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.
Solution
After analysing a number of software providers, Deague Group chose to partner with DXC Oxygen, to implement SAP Business ByDesign a ‘ready to run’, cloud-based ERP solution that promises the power of real-time visibility into business performance.
Deague Group’s decision to choose SAP Business ByDesign as its cloud-based ERP platform was heavily influenced by the software’s ability to satisfy two key prerequisites. Firstly, it needed a business management platform that could cope with its unique customer billing process. Secondly, Deague wanted software that would make it easy to undertake transactions across its numerous different business entities.
The built-in smarts of SAP’s Business ByDesign software, combined with some innovative design-thinking from DXC Oxygen’s technical team, has seen both issues neatly squared away.
Results
The company is pleased with the software’s real-time reporting capabilities as it has helped to improve decision-making on a daily basis. Removing spreadsheets and amalgamating reporting tools has meant the organisation now has one source of truth for greater visibility and reliability.
The bank reconciliation tool in SAP Business ByDesign has also been a hit. With over 30 different entities the organisation has to manage at least 90 bank accounts. When things have not been posted, it is very obvious in the system. SAP has lots of controls to ensure nothing is out of balance.
The whole implementation ran very smoothly. Deague Group now have a scalable, future-proofed platform in place that is already providing the organisation with a range of business benefits.
Adopting an incremental approach, Deague Group went live with the finance software first and is now looking to on-board CRM, operational worksheets, contract management and customer portals.
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