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Maritime
services company, Elcome has announced the deployment
of Great Plains from Microsoft's business solutions
division. Al Futtaim Technologies, which has implemented
the thin-client based ERP solution said the new system
will provide better management and communication for
Elcome's service engineers, partners and customers.
The Microsoft Great Plains solution will help Dubai-based
Elcome, which sells and services navigation and communications
equipment for ships, to manage a wide range of activities
as the company expands its operations in the Gulf region.
The company has offices across the Middle
East, Africa and India said the new application will
optimise their strategic business processes across these
geographies, as well as manage more than US$5.3 million
of inventory more efficiently.
"Many companies in the maritime
industry are slow to change, but we knew we had to have
greater efficiency in our business to enable us to manage
our growth. We started looking at our financial data,
but then realised we could integrate many more parts
of our operations than that, to give us greater transparency
of processes, greater control and much better ability
to meet our customers' needs," says Jimmy K. Grewal,
IT & security manager, Elcome.
Maritime services company, Elcome has announced the
deployment of Great Plains from Microsoft's business
solutions division. Al Futtaim Technologies, which has
implemented the thin-client based ERP solution said
the new system will provide better management and communication
for Elcome's service engineers, partners and customers.
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The
Microsoft Great Plains solution will help Dubai-based Elcome,
which sells and services navigation and communications equipment
for ships, to manage a wide range of activities as the company
expands its operations in the Gulf region.
The company has offices across the Middle
East, Africa and India said the new application will optimise
their strategic business processes across these geographies,
as well as manage more than US$5.3 million of inventory more
efficiently.
"Many companies in the maritime industry
are slow to change, but we knew we had to have greater efficiency
in our business to enable us to manage our growth. We started
looking at our financial data, but then realised we could
integrate many more parts of our operations than that, to
give us greater transparency of processes, greater control
and much better ability to meet our customers' needs,"
says Jimmy K. Grewal, IT & security manager, Elcome.
The project includes the first complete roll
out of Great Plains Field Services in the region, a module
of Great Plains designed specifically to manage engineers
and other staff that work away from the company's offices.
Elcome's engineers, often have to undertake repair work while
ships are still at sea.This creates a need not just for a
powerful human resources planning solution to manage the engineering
team, but also a need for a mobile solution says the maritime
services provider.
"When something goes wrong with a ship's
communication or navigation systems, the ship can be delayed
if the problem isn't fixed. It is very important that we are
able to meet the window to get things fixed; providing everyone
with the right information," explains Grewal.
Elcome is hosting the Great Plains application
with regional service provider ASP Gulf and making the application
available to branch offices through Citrix's Metaframe Suite
and the web, via Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Business
Portal.
The company decided to outsource hosting of
the application so that it did not have to worry about investing
in infrastructure for its various offices,and so that it would
have the flexibility to move to Dubai's proposed Maritime
City, scheduled to open in 2006.
"Elcome needed to provide their remote
users access to the ERP and email servers and lacked both
the infrastructure and the manpower to manage these critical
systems" says General Manager - ASPGulf.com
Ltd. "We were able to provide them with a complete secure
environment within two weeks"
"This solution also allows Elcome to
better manage the cost of expansion at the desktop level,
as staff can access the application with just a thin client
device, instead of a full PC," says Venkat Raghavan-
divisional manager of Al Futtaim Technologies.
Elcome's head office in Al Jadaf, Dubai, connects
to the ASPGulf datacenter via a 2Mbps leased line with all
data and application software residing in the service providers
facility. Remote users are able to access the company's ERP
and email applications using a range of desktops, PDAs and
thin client devices using the Citrix ICA protocol. The move
will also allow Elcome's branch offices across the Middle
East, Africa and India to access the applications via the
internet.
The solution can also be integrated with external
customer and supplier systems to provide quicker and better
management of relationships, and the capability to access
the solution via handheld devices such as Pocket PC or smart
phones.
The 36-year old Elcome serves as a sales
and service organisation for Marine Navigation & Communications
equipment and has recently expanded to vessel management systems,
simulators, data communications and solutions for the defense
industry.
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