Bateel UAE

Gourmet Food Producer and Retailer Integrates Businesses to Drive Global Growth

“Along with technical implementation specialists, Bateel also had access to our business consultants with extensive experience in the manufacturing sector to help the company optimise its processes.”

Bijoy Chandrabalan, Head of Business Development, Columbus IT Middle East

Bateel International needed to implement business management software that would reflect the company’s structure while joining Saudi Arabia and Dubai production and distribution centres with a common system. The company worked with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Columbus IT to implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV, streamlining operations and supporting growth in the retail and hospitality part of the business.

Business Needs

Bateel International is a rapidly growing luxury food producer and retailer with production and distribution centres in Saudi Arabia and Dubai, specialising in dates and other gourmet confectionaries. Bateel processing units buy from their own farms and then sell the finished products on to the company-owned and franchised retail outlets and cafes, which are already established across the Middle East, south and south-east Asia, and Europe.

Bateel developed its own in-house software for financial, warehouse and production management and had been using it for seven years. But it needed to update its infrastructure and processes to support growth and link the different parts of its business. Any solution needed to accommodate the unique structure of the company easily, ensuring efficient operations. Hariprasad Nair, Finance Manager at Bateel International, says: “One of the main problems we were experiencing was an inability to automatically feed data about production cost into our financial systems.”

In 2008, Bateel approached Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Columbus IT, a global IT firm that has a large client base in retail, distribution, and manufacturing across the Middle East. Bateel turned to Columbus IT for help after hearing recommendations about its work.

Solution

Bateel considered other solutions—including Sage—but with advice from Columbus IT, it realised that Microsoft Dynamics NAV was the ideal solution for its needs. Not only could the system be quickly implemented to reflect the company’s structure and processes, but it also has a thriving community of Microsoft partner companies. These partners provide add-on solutions that extend the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics in vertical sectors such as retail and hospitality.

Columbus IT worked with Bateel to implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV the company’s operations in Dubai. Bijoy Chandrabalan, Head of Business Development, Columbus IT Middle East, says: “Along with technical implementation specialists, Bateel also had access to our business consultants with extensive experience in the manufacturing sector to help the company optimise its processes.”

The solution was implemented for Bateel Dubai operations in just 90 days, going live in February 2009. The implementation of the similarly configured solution in Riyadh was timed to coincide with the end of the Saudi financial year and was completed in just 15 days, going live in January 2010.

Columbus IT has already integrated the company’s existing retail store management solution with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. And, in 2010, it will be implementing new solutions linked to the core Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution to run the growing number of Bateel retail outlets and cafes. With solutions from Microsoft partner LS Retail delivered by Columbus IT, Bateel will be able to run all operations on a common environment based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This will include the Microsoft-certified add-on LS Hospitality, which Columbus IT will deploy in the Bateel network of cafes.

Benefits

As Bateel continues to expand its company and franchised retail and cafe network worldwide, it now has an efficient core infrastructure for data sharing. “Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics NAV, we can control all our operations and get more refined information shared across parts of the business production cycle,” says Hariprasad Nair.

· Streamlines implementation. With specialised expertise in business solutions for retail and manufacturing, Columbus IT could implement the exact solution Bateel needed to streamline business processes and support growth.

· Controls inventory and business flow. Bateel can easily track and manage inventory by location as it goes through the production life cycle. Visibility has greatly improved from any point within the chain, ensuring that the right amount of stock is available to meet production and distribution schedules.

· Improves reporting and analysis. Bringing its Dubai and Saudi Arabia operations onto a common system means that senior managers can get consistent data delivered to monitor and analyse business performance. Integration with the retail outlets ensures data is available in a timely manner. “We can now automatically post end-of-day sales data to the back office and analyse it every morning,” says Hariprasad Nair.

· Reflects organisational and financial structure. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is one of the most flexible supply chain and financial applications available to medium-sized businesses. “The main impact it has had for us is integrating all our businesses,” says Hariprasad Nair.

· Speeds adoption. As well as being quick to implement, Microsoft Dynamics NAV starts to deliver benefits from day one because employees generally don’t need extensive training to access and run the solution. “Microsoft Dynamics NAV is easy for our users to learn and use effectively,” says Hariprasad Nair.

Customer: Bateel International

Web Site: www.bateel.ae

Number of Employees: 550+

Country or Region: United Arab Emirates

Industry: Food and beverage retailing industry

Partner: Columbus IT

Web Site: www.columbusit.ae

Customer Profile<

Bateel UAE

Gourmet Food Producer and Retailer Integrates Businesses to Drive Global Growth “Along with technical implementation specialists, Bateel also had access to our business consultants with extensive experience in the manufacturing sector to help the company optimise its processes.”

Gourmet Food Producer and Retailer Integrates Businesses to Drive Global Growth

“Along with technical implementation specialists, Bateel also had access to our business consultants with extensive experience in the manufacturing sector to help the company optimise its processes.”