Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
IT adoption helps FMCG firms improve efficiency
By siliconindia
|
Friday, 12 September 2008, 16:25 IST
Kolkata: Aiming at 10-20 percent improvement in production and efficiency levels, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are all set to spend around 10-15 percent of their net profit on technology. They are looking to adopt newer technologies to track expansion of product portfolio and manufacturing locations, besides aggregation of godown s and shipment warehouses, reported Business Standard.
As companies enter diverse businesses, the complexities of operation are increasing. Companies like ITC, Emami and Marico have expanded their presence into various businesses in FMCG alone. ITC's manufacturing locations have increased rapidly to about 200 from about a dozen facilities for its different businesses. The company's aggregating of godowns and shipment warehouses have also grown exponentially in last two years.
ITC is now building an IT infrastructure to bar code its produce at the warehouse itself, even before it reaches the retailers. The company is also looking to implement usage of 'push technology' for its sales force.
Emami has also invested big amount in IT. "We foresee an improvement of 10 percent in production and efficiency levels at Emami for financial year 2008-09. This will be achieved by implementing sales and operation planning, demand management and distribution resource planning which will enable system control to forecast sales, check inventories at locations, plan manufacturing resources and logistics to meet the customer schedules," said Mohan Goenka, Director, Emami.
Similarly, Marico is investing in better connectivity through enterprise portals, wi-fi enabled offices and in unified communications. The company is also investing in automation of many workflows like Writeoffs, insurance claims and media spend management portal.
Udayraj Prabhu, Head, business applications, Marico, says "We have commenced Project Edge, an initiative to improve the budgeting, planning and review systems using the TM1 tool of IBM-Cognos. This will enable us to strengthen our budgeting, planning and review processes by making them quicker, error-free and less tedious. This should lead to a significant saving in time for those involved in these activities."
