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Shabra
Plastics & Packaging
5.2 Third Party Selection
Before selecting a partner to fulfil Shabra’s requirements,
Rita Shah researched the market for software vendors.
Following this research, Shah met with six software
vendors. One of her main concerns was that the system
being implemented was compatible with the company’s
accounting system, developed by Intact in Dundalk. By
undertaking this research herself, Shah believed that
she would be in a stronger position when it came to
selecting a vendor. Additionally, this meant that the
knowledge and research would stay in-house once the
project was completed.
As part of the vendor review process, Shah talked to
Intact and, during that meeting, realised that the company
had experience in developing EDI systems. Given that
they also developed the accounting system it was decided
that they would be the best vendor to fulfil Shabra’s
system requirements.
5.3 The Project Team
Internal Team
- Rita
Shah, Managing Director –
Rita led the overall project undertaking research,
providing coordination and overall Project Management,
budgetary control and overall responsibility for
the relationships with Intact and Celerity.
- Sarah
O’Reilly, Audit Controller –
As senior lead on the project, Sarah acted as liaison
with the two oftware vendors and supported testing
of the EDI system – the most crucial part of
the project. Additionally, Sarah was responsible
for hardware and training (important as training
is a requirement of the ISO accreditation).
- Anita
Woods, HR Manager – Anita
had responsibility for the eBusiness system and
internal training, in addition to hardware compatibility
and communications compatibility between Musgraves
and Shabra. Anita was also responsible for internal
communications to ensure staff were happy with the
transition from the old systems to the new and were
informed throughout the project.
External
Team
- Aiden
Lawless, Intact Software –
Intact built both the hardware and software solutions
for Shabra’s eBusiness system and had previously
built Shabra’s accounting system. Aiden was
central to getting the system working and off the
ground and was key to the success of the project.
- Patrick
Redfern / Ciara Dermody, Celerity – Celerity
supplied the EDI software and acted as a point of liaison between Intact,
Shabra and Musgrave.
5.4
Timeline
Musgraves requested the EDI link in January 2000 but at that time a budget
had not been set aside for software development.
Rita met initially with Enterprise Ireland in July 2000 and again in September
2000. The application closing date was 30 September and approval for Shabra’s
application was sent to them in January 2001. The project took approximately
12 months to fully implement. The biggest delay overall was caused by the
changing requirements of the system. If a problem was uncovered, everyone
on the project team had to be consulted to find the solution and this caused
delays – it wouldn’t have worked unless the Shabra system integrated
perfectly with the Musgraves system.
5.5 Budget
Shabra was awarded a grant of €33,775 of which 93% was drawn down over
the duration of the project. When completing their grant application, the
budget quoted was higher that they thought would be required to complete
the implementation. By the end of the project, the final solution ended
up being more expensive than expected. This extra cost was due primarily
to staff having to work more hours on the project than expected.
5.6 System Rollout
There were no real issues with system roll-out. Given that clients had been
requesting an online ordering system for some time, there was no resistance
from a lot of them. The new systems meant that Shabra customers got a better
level of service with quicker response times.
About half of Shabra’s 3000 clients are using online ordering. Given
that organisations always want to follow the example of well-known leaders
in their own sector, Shabra used the Musgrave example to persuade customers
that they should also be ordering online.
Any resistance experienced by Shabra was mainly due to staff in certain
customer sites not being comfortable with use of web or email. In order
to combat this and get more customers online, any ordering by fax or phone
they were simply told that this would mean a delay in dispatch (and without
the product, the client couldn’t sell on to their customers).
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