At the request of Online Communication, 1C-Rarus in St.Petersburg has switched from 1С:Manufacturing Enterprise Management to 1С:ERP at GKS Alliance and created a digital ecosystem for their employees. 1C-Rarus has automated an end-to-end process of tender sales and bid purchasing, calculated management bonuses with 20-25 variables, and created a software robot to manage in-house turnovers. As a result, the handling of tender/bid documents has become three times faster, labor costs in departments have been reduced by 20%, orders are now being processed 30% faster, and company income has increased by 15%.
GKS Alliance Group Corporation is a leading company in the supply of materials and equipment to the oil&gas and energy industry. 4,700 companies have become the company's partners, including: Russian Railways, LocoTech, and Gazprom Neft. Group companies share common interests and work in a single information environment that brings together over 40 legal entities with approximately 500 employees. Before starting the project, the end-to-end chain of the tendering process — from winning the tender to the sale and calculation of employee bonuses — was evidenced at the company. Formerly, the Bid Department processed tender/bid documents in spreadsheet apps, and the information was chaotic. Sometimes employees of this department failed to submit tender documents in time, resulting in lost bids.
Under 1C-Rarus advice, the company top management team decided to switch from 1C:Manufacturing Enterprise Management to 1C:ERP Enterprise Management 2, i.e. a modern production management system designed to meet business needs. Advantages of switching to 1C:ERP for business include: receipt of prompt updates in the event of changes in legislation, additional functionality (a CRM module, production planning), and system scalability by connecting industry-specific modules and seamless integration with 1C systems.
1C-Rarus in St.Petersburg has become an implementation partner. The project was implemented along with Online Communications, an IT company, the customer of the system for outsourcing GKS Alliance.
Project Results
Unified ecosystem and bid management
GKS Alliance Group companies received a unified ecosystem by integrating 1C:ERP&CRM and electronic trading platforms through Seldon. A bid management system was created, through which priority bids were processed first. Each bid is managed and coordinated in stages for preparing documents for tender. Bid templates and documents are used later, in future work. As a result, the tender win rate has increased, and tender processing has accelerated threefold.
Automated calculation of management bonuses with 20-25 variables
Calculation of management bonuses for the commercial department personnel (which makes up 75% of the group company employees) is automated. The calculation of bonuses is based on:
- fixed indicators;
- increasing and decreasing coefficients;
- 20-25 variables that are applied in component formulas (discounts, markups, revenue, prime cost, etc.).
Using compound motivation, project managers prioritize tasks for their project teams and put the correct motivation into a formula calculator. As a result, employees can clearly see the bonus components. This encourages project teams to exceed previous performance and work more efficiently with clients.
Order Portfolio to manage liquidity and resources
Project managers and heads of departments manage the Order Portfolio in the automated and developed workstation. Bid results, i.e. sales volume, discounts, additional services, profitability and other indicators, are collected in a single interface. The Order Portfolio has been created to help top managers:
- сommunicate with banks in order to obtain loans and make financial transactions;
- monitor potential downtime;
- control the schedule of fulfilling obligations to customers.
Companies can now better manage project liquidity, resources, and risks.
Software robot for in-house turnover management
A software robot is created to manage internal turnovers between the Group companies. A chain containing the following data is automatically generated: a seller, a buyer, a transfer margin and other parameters to calculate the optimum. To manage the chain, conditions can be adjusted, and the robot automatically updates the result. Company managers no longer have to adjust internal invoices and restore sequencing manually.
Thanks to the order priorities built into 1C:ERP, the Bid Department employees can immediately recognize which bids to process first. The tender management process is unified throughout the company group. The system even includes a payment calendar for suppliers. Previous tender documents are repeatedly used. This saves hours of work for the company managers. Bid department employees can see the end-to-end chain of indicators for each bid and business area.
GKS Alliance project managers make strategic sales plans for each client. The plan is made for the year ahead with quarterly updates and the monitoring of electronic trading platforms (ETP). This helps properly prioritize bids in advance, rather than by actual state. Work with stock item groups is delegated to the project team. The team has a common KPI for the project result and profitability. All calculations are now visible in the program which unifies and motivates the employees. The Order Portfolio has received a great surge of support. It is a report where project managers can see the project progress, risks, and revenues. By using this new digital work ecosystem, sales have increased by 1.5 times.
