Betagro

“We had been running an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for many years to handle our sales, purchasing and other financial, transport and logistics needs,” explained Pornthip Chusuwan, head of IT at Betagro. “However, it did not handle the large amounts of documentation associated with these activities or of our research and development (R&D) and manufacturing departments. The time had come to replace it with a new solution, or solutions, that could meet our needs for years to come.”

Betagro embarked on an organization transformation project, redesigning its structure to improve information management and streamline business processes.

“Our management team set a goal to implement an enterprise-wide platform to securely and robustly handle all of our information,” said Chusuwan. “This would not only improve compliance and reduce human errors but would also allow us to simplify our processes, unifying them across the organization, speed up information retrieval and approvals and improve collaboration.”

After selecting SAP® to transition from paper-based documentation, Betagro turned to OpenText to strengthen its digital business and governance practices.

“Our partner, Atos Thailand, recommended OpenText™ Extended™ ECM for SAP® Solutions, as it was best suited to meet our needs with tight integration with SAP®, enterprise-wide scalability and a proven track record,” said Chusuwan.

Leveraging Extended ECM for SAP® Solutions and Atos’s expertise, Betagro moved from a business unit model to a functional unit model, unifying management processes across the enterprise.

“OpenText makes it easier and quicker to retrieve the information we need, improving and accelerating our decisionmaking processes,” stated Chusuwan. “Thanks to OpenText, we’ve been able to achieve this within our redesigned, streamlined business processes. Good information leads to better decisions and each of our 1,000 users can get to that information far more quickly than ever before.”

Betagro was heavily reliant on paper documents for product development, shipping, contracts, sales proposals, approvals and much more. The paper-based processes challenged their efforts to modernize and root out hidden costs. Spreadsheets and labor intensive data entry lead to errors and collaboration was difficult, as it was impossible to know if an individual was using the latest version of a document. This was a critical issue in product development, manufacturing and pricing, both for sales and purchasing.

With Extended ECM for SAP® Solutions, Betagro has seen significant process improvements. In procurement, the number of steps in the order administration process was reduced by more than half and all approvals are managed electronically.

“Among the many advantages that OpenText is providing is the improved speed of reviews and approvals,” explained Chusuwan. “All the associated documentation needed is now managed digitally by OpenText. For example, when reviewing a purchase order requisition, users can quickly access all associated documentation, such as quotations and specifications. Faster approvals mean potentially damaging delays are avoided which could impact production and distribution.”

The move away from paper positions Betagro to prove compliance with a full audit trail, which is highly important in areas of food safety, farming practices and approvals.

“Part of being compliant is to ensure everyone involved is working to the same, most up to date version in areas of product recipes or pricing, for example. With OpenText now being the single source of truth, we can be confident that everyone can collaborate effectively, knowing they are all using the same information. This helps eliminate errors caused by out of date information being used,” said Chusuwan.

Betagro users can better service customers, suppliers and partners by accessing the information they need with a just a few clicks, and all from within the familiar SAP® user interface. The new solution has been in production for two years and is being used for process and content management related to sales, inventory, transportation, product specifications and recipes and procurement.

“We know that we are better able to manage and protect our reputation, that we are providing improved customer service and that we can meet our compliance obligations thanks to OpenText,” said Chusuwan. “The OpenText solution is saving us time, which not only improves service, but allows our staff to put that time to good use elsewhere.”

As it continues its digital transformation, Betagro is actively looking at other areas where it can leverage its investment in OpenText, including contract, vendor invoice and lifecycle management. Betagro has opted to retain all content indefinitely but is planning to use OpenText retention and disposition scheduling capabilities in the future, along with greater process automation and using OpenText outside of the SAP® environment.