Ecowize, one of South Africa’s leading hygiene and sanitation service providers, has improved productivity and efficiency by implementing the Sage 300 (formerly known as Sage ERP Accpac) business management system. The group, which has more than 80 sites around South Africa, migrated to the new solution because it could no longer efficiently manage procurement, stock management and customer communications for its growing business using Excel spreadsheets and its old accounting package.

Ecowize contracted Sage 300 business partner, AWCape, to deploy the latest edition of Sage 300, including procurement management, document distribution management, and business intelligence. The solution runs on a Virtual Private Server (VPS). The project started in May 2015 and the accounts and business intelligence components went live within two months.

Ecowize Finance Manager, Johann de Bruyn, says that Ecowize chose AWCape as an implementation partner based on its track record at large sites such as Fruit & Veg City, Paarl Media, Educor & Damelin. Major gains from the project include a massive increase in processing capacity over the previous solution as well as better data security as a result of deploying the system in a hosted environment, he adds. The company is also benefiting from better reporting as well as efficiencies in document management and customer communications.

AWCape’s Operations Director Cornel Smit is overseeing the implementation of AccTech’s Procurement Business Process Management (BPM) (formerly known as eWorkflow) at Ecowize. This add-on module for Sage 300 will allow Ecowize management to improve procurement planning and control of procurement by enabling them to access the system through a web browser or their mobile devices. “eWorkflow together with Sage 300’s proven stability for companies with 100 or more users, and AWCape’s ability to support such systems, is what we need to support our growth,” said De Bruyn.

AWCape’s CEO Henri Hattingh said: “One of the major reasons for Ecowize’s success with implementing Sage 300 can be attributed to the buy-in and sharing of responsibility by Ecowize senior management. Their commitment helped our implementation team to deliver the goods.

“Another success factor was the time and effort that Ecowize invested in end-user training. We worked closely with the company on an extensive training and change management programme. This ensured that users knew how to use the system to its full potential from the outset, and that they eagerly embraced it as a means to improve their performance.”

“Growing businesses like Ecowize needs more than a solid accounting package if they are to perform at their true potential,” says Jeremy Waterman, Managing Director, Sage Northern Africa & Middle East. “They also need operational, business intelligence and customer relationship management features and capabilities to gain visibility into their enterprises, automate processes and enhance productivity. Our Sage 300 solution offers the freedom of choice, ease of integration, high performance, and reliability that forward-thinking companies rely on to increase profitability and seize the competitive advantage. “