MVO: Driving forward with Axapta

“The systems were measured against a set of criteria regarding functionality, flexibility, cost of implementation, level of support and the reliability of the implementation partners”, says Alexander Smoljak, assistant to the general director of MVO. “Three systems passed on to the final round, Axapta, JD Edwards and SAP. After an additional round of evaluations we chose to move forward with Axapta”.

Before Axapta MVO were operating with separate databases for each of their 25 stores. Data then had to manually enter the data into one central database, used to run their operations. With Axapta this process has now been automated and the single database now holds all information concerning the retail operations in the company thereby providing better decision support. The process of accounting fixed assets has also been automated. The automation has – naturally - eliminated the need for manual data entry freeing up time for other more valuable tasks. Finally the Axapta solution has made it possible to automatically deliver financial data according to the GAAP standard. This is important since MVO is partly owned by foreign investors.

The implementation was concluded after 8 months work, but already after 6 months of implementation MVO were able to start working with Axapta while the Columbus team were still working on the last parts of the solution. The solution supports 30 simultaneous users and the benefits have been many. A lot of “human factor” errors have been eliminated due to the integrated and automated processes. The general speed of operations has increased, partly because the systems performs better and partly because decisions can be made quicker. The MVO management also has a better picture of the day-to-day operations in each of the 25 retail stores and can run the business more efficiently.

The Russian Columbus IT Partner team has developed a Supply Chain Module (SCM) specifically for Axapta and MVO uses this module to monitor the flow of products from supplier over transporter and distributor all the way to the retail stores. This enables the management to track goods and the correlating costs and, on the basis of the collected information, optimize their logistical operations.

“It is always exciting to be a part of a project that aims to elevate an enterprise to the ‘next level', which is certainly the case with MVO”, says Alexey Vlasov, Account Manager from Columbus IT Partner in Moscow. “Seeing the many benefits they have achieved due to the automation and integration of processes and data is a pleasure and we are hoping this will help MVO to grow even more in the future”.

“MVO-holding” – largest chain of trading and service centers, supplying tires across Russia. Started in 1993, today the company has 24 stores, of which 21 are in Moscow and 3 in Saint-Petersburg. According to Russian Research Company Gallup Media, MVO owns 18% of market in Moscow. In 2000 German concern ContinentalAG acquired 26% shares of MVO.

MVO is a member of association “Six Seven”, uniting Russian leading retailers.