Management for companies

Companies which intend to reduce their costs and streamline their activities by introducing a management system do not have an easy task. There are a lot of products to choose from. László Izsó, managing director of ROSS Systems Hungary Kft. believes that IT management systems offer possibilities which should be taken advantage of. Efficient handling of the supply chain is becoming more and more important for FMCG manufacturers and Hungary is quite far behind international leaders in this field. He thinks that the reason behind most unsuccessful attempts to introduce IT management systems is that the solutions offered by general systems are not suitable for the specialised production processes of FMCG companies without adequate adaptation. In many cases, decision makers fail to recognise the differences between BOM management systems and Process manufacturing systems in time. The solution they offer, ROSS Enterprise is intended to help in the introduction of process manufacturing systems by offering possibilites which support adapting to special manufacturing requirements of products with ingredients and characteristics that change during t he processing. According to Attila Neumer from e-Best Tanácsadó Kft., not up to date, but up to minute records of stocks are needed in the FMCG sector. Since orders from clients have to be delivered quickly and these might change unpredictably, only manufacturers which succeed in making their processes completely transparent can be competitive. Dezső Visi, sales and marketing manager of LLP says that they have the LS Retail system to offer for FMCG companies. LLp is also the distributor of the Drink-IT (Helios-IT NV) and the FoodVision (Modus Consult) solutions. There are a number of tools and solutions in the product range of LLP which can be useful for FMCG companies. These include management systems from Microsoft , like Dynamics AX and NAV and CRM and various reporting systems linked to these.They have many clients from the FMCG business not only in Hungary but in the local region and world-wide as well. The total number of projects they have completed to date is over 700. According to Megatrend Kft., the biggest problem for FMCG companies is that they are unable to estimate the costs of product introductions and to monitor these continuously. In many cases a number of isolated systems are used instead of a single integrated system. Megatrend offers a solution based on moduls developed with assistance from industry experts to ensure that these meet specific requirements and can promote operations in compliance with ISO 9000, AFS and FSYS/BRC standards. R&R Software Zrt. also regards complex, integrated systems as the appropriate tools for management and controlling. Their sales manager, Zsolt Rozenberszki says these systems support efficiency and regulated operations. Return of the amount invested in introducing integrated management systems is guaranteed if the value of regulatory and auditing tasks and the value of information related to prompt and sound decisions exceeds those of introduction. The solutions of R&R Software Zrt. serve to allow smaller enterprises to use systems tailored to their indivdual processes. SAP has over 25 industry-specific solutions, for FMCG companies as well. SAP is familiar with and understands the requirements of the FMCG business which allows them to offer best practices. Their references include Budapesti Húspiac, Pet Pack and Coop. Their systems can tackle the major problems in the FMCG sector, like the high speed stocks are moving at, which require the real-time monitoring of merchandise, while a large number of clients and suppliers also need to be handled.