Freight One Scandinavia, a logistics company specialising in rail transportations between Finland, Russia and the CIS countries, has selected Epicor's next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to support its Finnish operations. Local Epicor partner Smart Time Oy assisted with the selection and will be managing the implementation project.
Most organizations eventually come to a point in their operations where Excel spreadsheets and good memories are no longer adequate if the business wants to continue growing. This was the situation that Freight One Scandinavia faced last year.
"We've been in operation about a year, and all our business data has so far been recorded in Excel spreadsheets," said Maria Kuokkanen, chief executive officer for Freight One Scandinavia. "The business has continued to grow at such a fast pace that the spreadsheets have become difficult to handle. We needed a reliable system and after exploring various options we chose Epicor."
The company had not previously been using an ERP system, and except for the accounting processes, the rest of the business was run using Excel spreadsheets. Epicor's regional sales director in Finland, Matti Pulla, explained that this is quite a normal situation in smaller companies.
"As the business grows, however, an integrated system will be required if they don't want to spend more time on manual administrative tasks, which could easily be automated and managed by an ERP system," said Pulla. "A suitable solution can give the business improved control and hence enables them to handle more sales opportunities and increase its competitiveness."
Epicor partner Smart Time has a significant role in the project. Freight One Scandinavia originally intended to buy just a customer relationship management (CRM) system, but when Smart Time evaluated the company's requirements it became clear that an integrated ERP solution would be a better investment.
"With Freight One Scandinavia we are on the same page about what the system should provide and how it should work," said Lauri Kestil, consulting director for Smart Time. "Customers also appreciate the fact that they can receive everything from the same supplier, from final delivery to service and maintenance."
The full ERP project will kick off this spring. Kestil concluded, "The system is 95 percent suitable for Freight One Scandinavia, we only need to slightly adapt some processes to fit some of their specific business requirements and make sure it's easy for them to use."
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