An SAP ERP and IS Media implementation project
The Standard Media Group are one of the oldest and well established media companies in Kenya. Founded in 1902, the highly diversified group is heavily involved in digital and print newspaper publication, the publication and distribution of magazines, hosts radio and television programs and even runs an internet portal for outdoor services. The Standard Media Group has won countless local and international awards for journalism, and continue to grow their portfolio of media services across the country.
The Business Challenges
As they continue to expand their media offerings, The Standard Media Group realised that they needed to automate the business, since the value was being lost in multiple areas through manual processing. Management were unable to get a clear, up to date view on how the organisation was performing, with late or inaccurate information impacting their ability to make critical business decisions. While examining this, they identified 3 major business challenges in their current processes:
Visibility
There was no higher-level visibility about the sales and returns taking place at different branches. This made it difficult for management to create a complete, holistic view of how the business was performing and identifying issues at specific branches.
Manual Approval
All approvals were paper based and required manual approval, making it a time-consuming process. There was also no centralised control over discounts, leaving substantial room for error.
Loss Management
There was no control mechanism in place for managing revenue leakages and fraudulent activities from both internal and external customers, leading to lost revenue.
They decided that they wanted to move from an almost exclusively manual business process to one that was highly automated and integrated.
Invenio's Solution
In 2014, The Standard Media Group partnered with Invenio to implement an integrated SAP system. A tight deadline of just 6 months was set from design to implementation, carried out by a dedicated project team. During that time, several different enterprise SAP ERP and SAP IS Media modules were implemented as part of the enterprise resource planning phase, helping improve business functions through automation. Invenio’s specialist teams worked closely with key members of The Standard Media Group’s management team to determine exactly what solutions were needed to achieve their business goals holistically, allowing us to tailor their business solutions to suit their business model and goals.
"Invenio is a proven specialist in the media industry and they demonstrated this with multiple workshops and client site visits." Orlando Lyomu, Finance Director, The Standard Group
The Results
Invenio’s teams implemented a variety of SAP, ERP and SAP IS Media solutions for The Standard Media Group as part of their first phase of planning. Since the implementation of these modules, The Standard Media Group have seen a huge number of positive changes, including:
- Increased control of major revenue leakages, thanks to the automation and streamlining of the sales and returns process. This, in turn improved cash collection from branches and reduced errors.
- Improved visibility of all transactions and operations, allowing management to track and manage branches more efficiently.
- Centralised management of customer and vendor master data across all lines of business, allowing staff and managers to focus on customer service.
- Better control thanks to a single customer account portal, which provides a comprehensive 360-degree view of customers in an easy to understand format.
- Reduced returns from customers at branch level due to an integrated, streamlined sales process implemented at customer, branch and regional level. This allowed The Standard Media Group to refocus on quality and increase sales.
- Paperless workflow approval processes have made transactions traceable and measurable at every level, improving oversight and performance.
- Transparency and integration between multiple departments and business units led to increased efficiency and collaboration.
The Standard Media Group was keen to work with a business that had proven experience as an implementation partner, not only in SAP and ERP, but also in IS Media solutions, which made Invenio the perfect choice. Thanks to in-depth knowledge and experience of the media industry, Invenio was able to provide a comprehensive solution that covered all lines of business, meeting The Standard Media Group’s needs without overshooting their budget.
With Invenio’s help, they were able to completely re-write the script for media publication and distribution in their country. Their new systems are not only more user-friendly, but have increased efficiency across multiple areas of the business and continue to save a considerable amount of time and money every month.
"The scale of the project and the constrained timelines meant that many doubted the ability of the entire team to deliver a successful go-live! Only one word comes to mind: BELIEVE!" Orlando Lyomu, Finance Director, The Standard Group