C U S T O M E R D E S C R I P T I O N :
ETA is a manufacturer of circuit breakers
headquartered in Germany. It has expanded
into the UK, Singapore, America and Canada.
PA R T N E R :
Symtec
S E C T O R :
Business to Business electronics
P R O D U C T:
Microsoft
®
Business SolutionsNavision
®
C H A L L E N G E :
ETA has an established business selling circuit
breakers and controls to industry. The UK arm
of the company was dependent on a bespoke
financials system from a single supplier. It wanted to
move away from this into a more open environment
because of technical support and other factors;
also to bring others subsidiaries of the company
worldwide into a similarly open environment.
S O L U T I O N :
Microsoft Navision offered the flexibility the
company was looking for.
B E N E F I T S :
Adaptable system that looks and behaves
like bespoke software
Freedom from single-sourced support
Flexibility to take the system international
S U M M A R Y:
With 1300 employees worldwide spread across
three different continents, ETA had found the IT
systems of some of its companies stretched at the
best of times by conflicting demands and different,
locally-sourced solutions. It wanted to use its
financials for more than just number-crunching,
it needed management information and this was
difficult to obtain from an ageing system which,
though excellent in its day, had been designed
without this in mind.
By choosing Microsoft Navision, the company
found an adaptable, flexible tool which offered
reporting quickly and easily. It also found that
because the system was from an international
company it was possible to install it throughout the
organisation, accepting that this substantially extended
the implementation time originally envisaged.
T H E C U S T O M E R :
ETA is a German company with its head office
near Nuremberg. Over 50 years old, it specialises
in circuit breaker technology; 1300 or more
highly qualified staff work on circuit breakers
of all descriptions and sell them into electronics
manufacturers and industrial customers alike.
The products have accreditations for safety and
reliability in numerous countries and it has
recognition from civil aviation authorities and
other safety-critical organisations as well as from
the commercial sector. The UK branch was
established in 1976 and there are also group
companies in North America and Asia.
T H E B U S I N E S S C H A L L E N G E :
It might seem odd to want to replace a financial
system that was basically working, but for ETA
UKs Commercial Manager, Sue Linnett, it seemed
like common sense. We had an installed bespoke
system which did the job well, but there was only
one person who could support it and we were
aware that if he went under the proverbial bus
we would have a problem. The search therefore
began for something that would be comparatively
open for support issues but which could be
configured precisely according to the business
requirements. It needed to link into the SAP
system at head office; in addition, as the
installation progressed, it needed to act as a pilot
for the rest of the international offices to evaluate
when considering their own upgrades.
T H E S O L U T I O N :
Linnett first looked at the installation at head office
in Germany, which used SAP. Deciding this was
too complex for the UK offices purposes her
research took her to Navision, then not yet owned
C A S E S T U D Y
ETA Circuit Breakers Limited by Microsoft. The Singapore office also made positive noises
about the software so Linnett got in touch with the manufacturer
and was then contacted by Microsoft Certified Business Solutions
partner, Symtec.
Microsoft Navision was the right solution for a number of reasons.
First the support implications were eliminated with the purchase
of a widely-used system. Second the ability to tailor the system
was important: I dont think anyone buys a straight installation
of Microsoft Navision, its always adapted, says Linnett. Perhaps
more important than the flexibility was the reporting facilities of
Microsoft Navision. We can get whatever information we need
out of it at the touch of a button; we liked the fact that it was
Windows
®
based, user-friendly and fully integrated with Excel.
The latter point is an important one since comparatively few staff
would need intensive training on a product as familiar as
Microsofts key spreadsheet.
Linnett and her team therefore decided to implement the system
first for the Companys distribution requirements not then having
a requirement as for a manufacturing solution. Being 100 miles
away from Symtec proved not to be an issue as the partner was
more than keen to offer all the technical support it could. This
became important as the project grew beyond the bounds of the
originally-envisaged specification something for which Linnett
takes full responsibility. It took a long while to implement and
that was entirely our fault.
What happened was that at the same time the UK office was
implementing its new system the sister companies around the
world were looking at doing the same thing. We decided to
put Microsoft Navision into our four other offices as well, says
Linnett. Symtecs Managing Director, David Walker, confirms
that the international element was more than had been envisaged
immediately but says this wasnt a problem. Its difficult to avoid
some internationalisation (when youre dealing with a system
of this size) everyones got an office overseas somewhere.
Symtec remained, resolutely, the UK presence but was able to
supply technical information and details to the other country
partners when it came to their own installations.
Discussions with Symtec started in 2000 and due to the evolving
scope of the implementation the contract was actually signed in
early 2002. Linnett was impressed at the resources Symtec had
at its disposal for the project liaising overseas but also training
and of course implementing the system. The time it took was also
lengthened by an innovative approach taken by ETA: We decided
to transfer all of our data manually as a training programme,
she explains. Which is why we didnt go live until January 2003,
and we took one month running the bespoke system concurrently
to make sure we were happy with the new one which we were. The benefits in the first few months were easy to obtain and
immediately apparent. We just didnt have customer relationship
management (CRM) before and we do now, says Linnett. Extracting
information is made simpler by the system and the fact that its
Windows-compatible means a new user doesnt have to learn the
basics before sitting in front of it.
C O N C L U S I O N :
So, has the project delivered in terms of return on investment?
Although ETA prefers not to disclose the figures spent on the
system Linnett stresses that pure ROI was never the objective.
The processes have improved and there are things we just
couldnt do before, she says. Actual financial pay-back is
possible but unlikely before the system has been running for
3-4 years, although measuring business that might have been
lost without CRM is tricky.
Internationally, there remain things to do. America is not yet
live with its system not due to any problem, it simply began
its implementation later and once all of the country offices are
running the same software there will be further reporting and
integration benefits, felt mostly by head office. Meanwhile the UK
has better information available to support its business decisions,
and the scope to grow its system to accommodate manufacturing,
HR and other areas with which Microsoft Navision can help.
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Software Inc., and Microsoft Business Solutions ApS are subsidiaries of Microsoft Corporation. Other product and company
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©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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