A major overhaul of a company's financial and logistics infrastructure is something which no IT Manager looks forward to. But Burton's Biscuits, one of the UK's premier food manufacturers with a turnover of 180 million, wanted to improve the performance and efficiency of its existing IT infrastructure to streamline its operations. The company has taken ten months to replace computer systems in its five distribution centres, three factories and operations headquarters. The previous system was not Year 2000 compliant and could not cope with EMU. As Financial Controller Steve Yarwood put it: "If we were going to take a major step forward, we had to tackle both issues at the same time."

After carefully evaluating all the options, Burton's decided to implement a fully integrated process oriented system, using AcceleratedSAP methodologies. "We looked at a number of solutions," continued Yarwood, "but most did not meet our logistics requirements. Our small IT department would not be able to cope with a multi-vendor solution, so a best-of-breed approach was not appropriate for us. As our evaluation progressed, it was obvious that SAP was by far the best fit for what was needed."

The SAP Solution

Over 200 staff now use the new system, which has streamlined key business applications such as the sales order processing system. Up-to-date sales data is accessible to a far greater volume of users than previously; for example with SAP Materials Management module, staff in marketing and other departments can monitor stock levels which previously were far more difficult to access. Some were initially wary of change but are now seeing the benefits of the new system. Would Burton's make the same choice again?

"I would still choose SAP because of the performance benefits it delivers to users right across the enterprise." commented Yarwood, "but we would probably get our training and data transfer resources organised earlier."