In 1999, when Bacallan joinedthe family business incorporated in 1958, the entire gamut of thesupply chain activities of the manufacturer of the Granny Goose lineof snack foods, as well as pasta, flour, animal feeds and soybeanoils, was executed manually. Its five manufacturing facilities locatedacross the Philippines operated distinctly from one another, eventhough there were overlaps in the products they made. Even internally,about the only technological sophistication came in the form of someExcel spreadsheets.

"Market conditions had changed drastically by then," says Bacallan."Till the late eighties, all we needed to grow was to be the biggestmanufacturer in terms of capacity, with which we gained economies ofscale in raw material imports, flood the market with our brands, andcustomers' choices would somehow be limited to our brands. But withglobalisation, new players were entering the Philippines market.Customers began to have more choices of products that were customisedto their needs, at prices that they perceived to be giving them valuefor money, and which were supported by bigger budgets in advertisingand promotions."

"In the days before globalisation, the way for management to analysecost and profitability was in terms of bigger picture numbers, such ashow much we were making in terms of sales in the feed business, theflour business or the consumer business. In the new economy, however,we need to mine information in greater detail. For instance, in thecategory of snack foods, where are we making money--is it in brand Aor B, on the 30-gram or 150-gram packs? We need to compete at adifferent level, which necessitates churning out more granular, morespecific data," says Bacallan.

The new economy has propelled this family-operated business away fromold school business rules. "We recognised that because we carriedlow-margin, commodity-type products, such as flour, soybean meal andsoybean oil, we needed to focus on cash turnover instead of margins.When sales are volume-driven, we cannot afford to have a high level ofinventory for raw materials on finished goods. From the demand orsales side, we also needed to have better relationships with ourcustomers so that we can push more products to them."

GMC first put its own house in order by implementing an ERPERP packagefrom JD Edwards in 1999. Through this common ERP system, itconsolidated its manufacturing operations from five locationsthroughout the Philippines. This alone had an impact on its supplychain: due to synergies gained from raw material complementation,inventories at the corporate level were brought down. Alles zu ERP auf CIO.de