11 Sep Pienaar Bros Sage 200 Evolution Customer Testimonial
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Pienaar Bros Project Description
The company, Pienaar Bros, has over 300 employees and 180 users, of which 100 to 120 are on the system concurrently at any point in time. The company has 14 branches throughout Southern Africa and multiple warehouses within each branch. Group logistics and stock manager at Pienaar Bros, James Braun, explains that their existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software was being discontinued which led to the company investigating new solutions.
Pienaar Brothers, one of the largest distributors of personal protective equipment (PPE) in southern Africa, also needed an ERP solution that would integrate with their existing stock issue system. The existing software required a manual integration process which not only left room for human error but also required a great deal of micromanagement. “Sage Evolution made the most sense as an ERP solution. It was competitively priced and it could fill all our needs,” he says.
Sage suggested five service providers to Pienaar Brothers who could implement Sage Evolution for them. Each company had to present and provided a quotation that was specific to Pienaar Bros’ needs.
“We were extremely impressed with Brilliant Link as they were professional, highly experienced and their quotation was competitive,” says James. “We narrowed the field down to two companies and in the second on-site meeting, Brilliant Link was far superior in terms of professionalism and experience. After that, there was no question in our minds that they were the best company for the job.”
Final Result
The entire project ran from late May 2017 and was completed in early December 2017. Sage Evolution was implemented at all 14 Pienaar Brothers company branches at the same time. Brilliant Link set up a country-wide training programme for Pienaar Brothers staff. A fully integrated Sage Evolution ERP and on-site issue software ensure there is no room for mismanagement of stock or account management. The system offers Pienaar Bros significantly more flexibility, particularly with regard to reporting and document templates. Sage Evolution has superb integration with Excel to export reports, manipulate data, and drill down into reports.
Pienaar Brothers have also undergone a change management process. This has brought to light multiple business processes in the company which needed to be addressed. There were areas of no accountability and traceability with the old system and therefore no red flags were raised. Sage Evolution has provided the company with a new level of control.
Brilliant Link has since designed a customised application to deal with Pienaar Brothers’ unique business process which allows them to maintain control while still maintaining efficiency to suit the business’ needs.
Pienaar Bros Sage Success Story
“We have been very happy with Brilliant Link’s service. They have helped every step of the way and implemented everything we needed,” says James. “With any hiccups or limitations in terms of Sage Evolution functionality, Brilliant Link found ways to work around it. This project has been a complete success.
The ERP was successfully implemented over a weekend requiring only one business day of down time. On the first day of ‘Go-Live’ we processed over 300 invoices and more than 200 separate supplier invoices. We are also using Sage Branch Accounting very successfully, allowing for the management of each branch individually as well as providing for superb control of inter-branch transfers.”
James says Brilliant Link’s service has put them in a class of their own. “Brilliant Link has upskilled me significantly throughout the implementation. The intention was never to sustain the requirement for ongoing support but to rather empower us to learn the system from front-end to back-end which has far exceeded our expectations. ”