As the North East rebalances to adapt to changing market conditions, the economy increasingly depends on success and growth across a range of sectors– including IT, food and drink, tourism, life sciences and discrete manufacturing.
Recognising these market trends, and the importance of adjusting to them, leading Aberdeen-based SAP® (Software Applications Processes) consultancy, Absoft, has spent the last year focussing on diversifying the business sectors it supports.
Not only has Absoft successfully diversified out of a largely energy focussed customer base – but the firm’s Commercial Director, Don Valentine, is confident that the firm is now in a great position to help ambitious local companies to digitally transform their businesses and help them flourish.
Don says: “Over the past few years, we have worked hard to secure work across the UK in the discrete manufacturing, transport, IT services and local authority sectors and it’s been very successful.”
So successful, that Absoft has recently announced contracts worth over £2.2 million in the past six months, resulting in an increased headcount of 10%.
Don continued: “The varying contract scopes are balanced across a range of industry sectors and a cross-section of our services including a mix of merger and acquisition activity, operational optimisation, system support right through to supporting customers adapt to the new GDPR regulations. “
One key recent win for us is the implementation of the next generation business systems solution, SAP S/4HANA for Aberdeen based, agricultural manufacturer, Marshall Trailers.”
Based on the very latest technologies, SAP S/4HANA represents a step change in business IT systems. Its easy-to-use user interface, accessibility from mobile devices and lightning fast data processing speeds differentiate it from competitors.
“The coverage of the solution meets the needs of our diversified customer base by providing functional support for; finance, sales, purchasing, production, maintenance, warehousing, HR and logistics. The upshot is that our customers have one system, one integrated set of data, and a single version of the truth. It’s totally scalable too – you can start with finance only and switch-on other modules as your business grows.”
Absoft can implement S/4HANA into the customers’ dedicated computing centre or into the cloud, depending on the customers preference. Important to Don, Absoft and its customers, is that all these benefits are available in a system which can be ready for operational use in as little as 12 weeks.
He continues: “SAP has typically been viewed as only an option for companies with large numbers of employees and high turnovers. This just isn’t the case anymore. Advances in technology and accelerated implementation approaches mean that S/4HANA is absolutely an affordable option for ambitious smaller companies looking for a system to streamline and optimise business activity to achieve commercial goals.”
One company with such ambition is Marshall Trailers, Scottish manufacturer of agricultural machinery. Marshall’s business growth plans led to the firm engaging Absoft to help them digitally transform their business by implementing SAP S/4HANA.
Charles Marshall, the firm’s Managing Director, said: “We needed a solution to support our production growth targets whilst managing costs. We researched several solutions and concluded that SAP was the only system that gave us the functionality that we might need not just now but into the future. Knowing of Absoft’s track record and experience in SAP, we knew we were in safe hands when we selected them as our implementation and support partner. “
“As we aim to grow revenues, it was important to us that the solution we selected could be tailored to support our processes and we took the decision to invest in SAP S/4HANA. Now, we’re at a point where every time we hit a new process requirement we find it is there in the system already and we just need to switch it on. It’s exactly the support we wanted. “
We are confident that SAP S/4HANA, along with Absoft’s ongoing support, will be key in helping us achieve future objectives.”
Don concluded: “Offering tailored solutions to growth-oriented businesses operating across a range of sectors is certainly one area in which we foresee further business success – and represents another stage of growth for Absoft. It’s an exciting time – not only for our team, who are relishing these projects, but for businesses that recognise that digital transformation are key to future success.”
Headquartered in Aberdeen, Absoft is a leading SAP® specialist with a proven track record of project delivery since 1991. A SAP accredited Partner Centre of Expertise, SAP Value-Added Re-Seller (VAR) and provider of qualified SAP solutions, Absoft provides SAP ERP implementations, process optimisation, M&A transition and SAP support services across multiple industries.
For further information, visit: www.absoft.co.uk
