El-Ajou Group - the Global Challenge

Knowledge Service: ERP Professional Services

Speciality: JDEDwards Customer Service Management Systems

Saudi Medical & Office Supplies Dealer and Krofire

  El-Ajou has Offices across the Kingdom. The Go-Live for the Al-Jeel Company is scheduled for late November 2002. Krofire will be in attendance through-out the Summer Months when temperatures will be rising to 45 degrees plus in the shade. This Project marks the First significant outing for the Krofire CSMS Speciality which as only recently been added to our suite of service lines. We hope it will be the first of many.

  Work started on the Al-Jeel side of the Business which operated on highly lucrative deals with Hospitals throughout the Kingdom. Much of the CSMS & EAM work for Al-Jeel was based upon paid-up Contracts that Entitled the Hospitals for Parts & Labour Free services or Labour only charges for maintenance. Of this work a high proportion is based upon pre-planned Preventative Maintenance visits with a fixed number of visits per Contract. This presented a unique challenge for Krofire. The JDEdwards OneWorld PM Scheduling is based upon the Equipment Management modules and is not integrated with CSMS Contracts Management to the level that Al-Jeel desired.

  Other requirements included the tracking of Service Order Costs at Contract level AND Product Line level, to give the Business the type of Management Information required for Decision Making. Al-Jeel is a small business and is destined to struggle with some of the more sophisticated systems within OneWorld. For example, they don't use Standard Costing and their method of Invoicing and Discounting, although not unusual to the Middle East, is unsupported by the Best Practice system such as OneWorld. The Project Team endeavoured to turn this juggernaut around and get it onto the right tracks and up to the standards of Western Business Practices. Nothing could be taken for granted. The entire Business needed to be pulled up by its boot-straps and re-educated.

  If everything goes well with Al-Jeel then the Model developed will be applied to El-Ajou in the middle of 2003. OneWorld will form a cornerstone of a wider paradigm shift for the Business. It will focus on Office Automation in a Marketplace becoming tougher through increased competition. Some of the old certainties were disappearing from the Saudi market - the big western suppliers of Office Equipment are now shopping around for Middle Eastern partners offering best of breed CRM (Customer Response Management) and Knowledge Management solutions. The plan for the Business is to introduce Internet-based support for Customers in the Kingdom and CRM Market Intelligence for the Major Suppliers beyond the Kingdom.

  Krofire is helping to build this Business Vision for the next five years that will ensure the continued success of El-Ajou in this new era of Globalisation. Krofire is using the WinStream System and Best Practice Knowledge delivery to get the Project off to the best possible start. El-Ajou had the software for two years and failed to get the project started. Until July 2002 the CSMS Team had never seen the software. Krofire hit the ground running and launched into intensive training and workshops which lead to a Tortoise and Hare scenario. The Team that was two years behind suddenly became two months ahead!