Microsoft DynamicsCustomer Solution Case Study

Books Distributor Improves Inventory Management by 30 Percent

OverviewCountry or Region: IndiaIndustry: Distribution

Customer ProfileNavyug Distributors, partnership firm and sole distributor of Navneet Publications, is an INR 180 crore (U.S.$ 37.5 million) books and stationery distribution company – mainly playing in the domestic market.

Business SituationThe management at Navyug wanted to upgrade to a contemporary IT infrastructure to enhance data security, improve reporting, and eliminate the duplication of business information within the organization.

SolutionMicrosoft® Gold Certified Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd, deployed Microsoft® Dynamics™ NAV at Navyug’s Mumbai head office and across its six Clearing and Forwarding (C&F) agent locations nationwide.

Benefits Improves inventory management by 30

percent Effortless data-entry Streamlines transport management Improves reversal – Inventory and taxes Ensures intelligent information is

available

“A seasonal business, with a very high peak season requires a real time tool which automates data entry, management as well financial and customer information. Microsoft® Dynamics™ NAV helps maintain a highly productive work environment, supporting every function within the organization.”Kishor Gogri, Partner, Navyug Distributors

A distributor of books to educational institutes and book shops across the country, Navyug Distributers was in need of an integrated system to co-ordinate business processes. It also wanted greater emphasis on improved customer service and financial management. The company implemented Microsoft® Dynamics™ NAV 4.0 at its headquarters in Mumbai and across its six Carrying and Forwarding (C&F) agent locations nationwide. This had improved the C&F process cycle with real-time information available from all six locations for the management team based in Mumbai. Dynamics NAV creates visibility to company’s inventory situations and profitability. Schemes and discount policies, VAT calculations were automated to benefit the company through consistent and regular treatment to similar types of customers.

SituationNavyug distributes mainly three categories of books which are identified as SBU (Strategic Business Units) items. These include: Educational Books Children Books Stationery

Navyug’s has a warehouse is situated in Andheri (a suburb in Mumbai, India). It also operates via six C&F (Carrying and Forwarding) agents in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kolkata, Patna and Chennai. Navyug has three marketing offices located at Pune, Nagpur and Chennai. The Chennai office supplies inventory to end-customer just like a C&F agent. The company’s sales revenues were approximately U.S.$ 37.5 million (INR 180 crore ) in year 2009–10. Navyug’s headquarters in Andheri was using a FoxPro based system wherein the accounting and inventory processes were managed on disparate applications. This led to duplication in ledger entries. The duplication of data led to delays in the process cycle and substantial loss of employee time.

The customer ledgers posted through sales system were to be posted again to financial package to generate billing information. To complicate matters further, the C&Fs sent their database for payment and sales transactions. Weekly reconciliation was a painful, time-consuming and non-productive activity and also risked database corruption.

Being a books distribution company, the workload is seasonal, with peak season running for only five months annually. In the peak season, data entry would be enormous and for each order, an employee would

manually feed in all the information such as name, language, customer location and address, product categories and various codes for each relevant edition. Navyug lacked an organized online inventory database. “We did not have a structured method to track books edition wise and stock wise. Our pricing and discount policies were inappropriate and manual interference was possible. All these factors effected our performance and profitability,” says Kishor Gogri, Partner, Navyug Distributors

Mr. Gogri adds, “Due to minor parameter changes, we had to create dimensional reports repeatedly.”

Solution“Due to FoxPro’s curtailed security, the internal auditors suggested to Navyug to migrate to a contemporary technology set-up,” recalls Mr. Gogri, Partner, Navyug Distributors.

Navyug Distributors evaluated various solutions such as SAP, Financial Accounting System before implementing Microsoft® Dynamics™ NAV. PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd (PwC), a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, implemented the solution in four calendar months at Navyug’s Mumbai head office and within its six C&F agent locations nationwide.

The Dynamics NAV 4.0 rollout began in April 2006 and was completed by August 2006. Navyug had an upgrade as well in-between with the features requirement from PwC and the work is still showing its glow running successfully even after four years. The modules implemented are finance (general ledger), fixed assets, sales and receivables,

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purchase and payables, inventory management and location transfers.

BenefitsNavyug’s processes are directly linked to Navneet’s purchase SAP database through different customized excel porting (Importing and Exporting) services.

Improves Inventory Management by 30 Percent“We get real-time information from our C&F agents across India. Since the location specific transactions are handled separately, Navyug has improved inventory management by 30 percent. C&F locations are operating on same system today. This brings in transparency throughout the organization to mitigate customer requirements. In case of non-availability of the stock at a location, a nearby location can help fulfilling the customer requirements.

Effortless Data Entry Each book is associated with an item number, quantity, for each different edition. Tracking and entering this data used to be tedious, time-consuming and error prone. “Today, when an employee enters the item code, Dynamics NAV has been customized to pick up editions as per real time stock availability. This not only reduces data entry time by as much 70 – 80 percent, but it also reduces manual errors completely,” explains Kishor Gogri, Partner, Navyug Distributors.

Streamlines Transport ManagementTransporting the books and stationery is a huge cost with Navyug sending as many as 500 shipments each day during season. Reconciling transport vendor invoices was a painstaking and manual process. To ensure that this process is simplified and automated,

PWC developed a module for Lorry Receipt (LR) numbers. “Now invoices are squared-off automatically against valid LR numbers, eliminating the risk of double payment to transporters,” explains Head of Accounts at Navyug.

Improves Reversal: Inventory and TaxesAs the season ends, schools and C&F agents send back some of books that haven’t been sold. This requires a reversal process which was completely manual earlier. Today, with Dynamics NAV, the company is not only able to reconcile the inventory, but it also settles the reversals in taxes such as VAT reversal for its customers.

With Microsoft Dynamics NAV, it is possible to treat the retailers and whole-sellers with appropriate taxation norms. For example which entering a reversal for the retailer, the system calculates the taxes which were included in the retail price and then reverses the order. “We had 2 people managing reversals only, today, there isn’t a need separate headcount, as NAV handles the process end-to-end,” explains Mr. Gogri.

Ensures Intelligent Information is Available in Real TimeA very confusing and difficult interest calculation is called Sarafi, in Indian partnerships. This is loans and advances made by either the partners or friends and family. A custom module ensures that each person's loan account is maintained and interest calculated in real time.

In addition, there are several reports and intelligent data points available with the management from stock analysis to aging

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including type of product e.g. text book, story book etc., on the inventory front. Sales information is available in real time by region, city, customer, SBU etc. “This information allows us to focus on key growth markets with different strategies, while using market development strategies for under-performing cities or regions,” explains Sameer Shah, Sales Head, Navyug Distributors.

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Microsoft DynamicsMicrosoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.  For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to:www.microsoft.com/dynamics

About PricewaterhouseCoopersPricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is one of the world's pre-eminent professional services organizations. As professional advisers the company plays a significant role in the operation of the world's capital markets. With a workforce of more than 155,000 people in 150 countries and 22 industry-specialized practices, it helps its clients to solve complex business problems and aims to enhance their ability to build value, manage risk and improve performance. Its focused services are in the fields of assurance, tax, human resources, transactions, performance improvement and crisis management that have helped address client and stakeholder issues and build public trust and enhance value through the application of what it calls Connected Thinking.

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© 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Dynamics

− Microsoft Dynamics NAV 4.0 SP 3.0 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

− Microsoft Small Business Server 2003

Hardware IBM Xeon 3650 Series Server 550 GB – Multi Hard disks- RAID 10 with 4

GB RAM Clients –PIV and Core Duo configurations

Partners PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd.

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com

For more information about Navyug Distributors products and services, call (91) (22) (28214186).

For more information about PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd products and services, call (91) (22) (66691109) or visit the web site at www.pwc.com