A Report On Dabur India IT Systems Information Technology Essay

Dabur India Limited is India’s fourth largest consumer packaged goods company in India. They offer a wide range of specialization in health care products, personal care and food care products. Over the years, Dabur has clearly maintained its monopoly as one of the prime leaders in India’s fastest moving and developing fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). The dominance of Dadur was such that it was impossible for the Indian public to do away with their products- May it be their Chvanyaprash, honey or Glucon-D or for that matter even their dantmanjan or their shampoos.

Today Dabur is arguably the world’s largest leader in ayurveda with a portfolio of over 250 herbal/ayurvedic products. It includes five flagship brands with distinct identity as their FMCG portfolio. Dabur today operates in key consumer products categories like Hair Care, Oral Care, Health Care, Skin Care, Home Care and Foods. The company has a wide distribution network, covering over 2.8 million retail outlets with a high penetration in both urban and rural markets. It has always been a challenge for Dabur to keep moving at pace with which the Information Technology (IT) sector is moving, but over the past few years the investments put in for IT by Dabur is enormous and noteworthy. Some of the IT initiatives implemented by Dabur was high appreciative- They migrated from using baan and mfg ERP systems to centralized ERP systems from 1st April 2006 in all its business units. It implemented a country wide new WAN infrastructure for running centralized ERP system. It also rolled out many new IT services to its new plants and CFA’s.

The prime objective of this assignment is to study the use of ERP in Dabur India Limited. A detailed analysis is given below

Dabur’s IT initiative

Dabur India has always been a firm believer in technology. To some extent, the vast use of information technology by Dabur has helped them to spread their distribution system across India and all over the world. It has also helped them to cut down on cost and increase profitability. Some of the major IT initiatives of Dabur are-

Dabur implemented SAP ERP system from April 2006 for all its business units, a more advanced ERP system than the earlier Baan and Mfg ERP system.

Installed a country wide WAN infrastructure for running centralized ERP system.

They opened up their new data centre at KCO head office.

Extension of reach system to distributors for capturing secondary sales data.

Some of the future plans for Dabur are mainly focused on SAP ERP system.

Integration with distributors and stockists using SAP

Backward integration of SAP with suppliers.

Implementation of SAP HR and pay roll.

SAP ERP system

ERP is a software which is pre dominantly designed to felicitate ease of enterprise operations. MYSAP is the most commonly used application of SAP by Dabur India. Normally ERP software does not discharge the functions properly if the organization does not adapt to the change. The possibility of the problems may be from technical to managerial. MYSAP is one such application from SAP which is designed in overcoming the above mentioned drawbacks. It is also compactable to all functions in an organization. It also helps in better performance and better integration. The main advantages of a MYSAP application are

It is Transparent and flexible application- This can be easily accessed by any staff in the organization, from the top management to the technicians. Arguably this system boosts the morale of the employees and results in better performance.

A complete understandable solution- This system includes almost all part of the organization like reengineering, organizational dynamic etc. This in turn makes the job of the vendor easier.

Helps to achieve good governance- MYSAP ERP provides the necessary inducement thus helping the organization in good governance. It also provides some special applications that help the management to keep track of the functions performed and also monitor the financial transactions.

It also helps the organization to take quick and effective decisions.

It also helps in cost reduction

Reduction of risks.

It also felicitates good overall business transformation.

SAP-A Boost to Dabur India

A study conducted by Accenture states that high performance business invest in the state of art IT like ERP software are the most important in order to be able to leverage it for strategic cost management and effective collaborations with the customers. Dabur has linked its corporate headquarters, 12 manufacturing units and 30 distribution centers with SAP ERP system. They had a three phase ERP improvement model-

Correcting the transactional and management information systems.

Conducting change management and synchronizing its business processes with reliaties in an ERP context.

Developing value realization project.

The use of SAP ERP system was immense such that they even developed a web based demand planning and trade promotion forecasting tools and installed point of sale software at select retail outputs. This helped Dabur to integrate with the customers into its IT network and gather real time market information that would result in better sales.

Dabur has been immensely successful in implementing strategic and operational changes which have led to much higher amount of performance. The shoot up of their annual sales was noteworthy. Their profits too increased by a considerable amount. It even developed a new sales force structure which has enhanced productivity. These initiatives are slowly allowing Dabur to leverage IT as a strategic asset and are ensuring a constant availability of IT talent regardless of business demands. It is to be noted that all of these efforts are aimed at achieving operational excellence and performance.

SAP has helped Dabur in identifying opportunities based on consumer needs, tailoring product for that people and expanding with the segment, retaining its overall leadership position.

Dabur India has tied up with Country’s leading IT provider Accenture, both these companies are designing an application outsourcing approach thus transforming application development and maintenance to help themselves to achieve performance.

Conclusion

By implementing a SAP ERP system, Dabur India has helped itself in retaining the position as a growing leader in the fast moving consumer goods section (FMCG). Its move to disable the baan and Mfg ERP was seen as a highly innovative move. This has also enabled them for better sales forecasting and improvement in their sales after the implementation of SAP raised several eye brows. The move to make this system available for all the employees starting from the top management to the bottom strata has what made Dabur distinguish itself from the other companies in the FMCG sector. With the implementation of MYSAP, Dabur has been able to make some very important strategic decisions and thus increasing its productivity.

As mentioned above, implementation of ERP has helped Dabur to increase its productivity; it means that there is obvious, rise in profitability too as both is directly proportional. One may say that the ultimate strength of Dabur is they are keeping themselves with latest happenings across the IT field. They even plan to integrate distributors and stake holders using SAP. The most challenging part from Dabur would be link HR with SAP. They are planning to implement a SAP HR and pay roll pattern.

All the above mentioned initiatives would enable Dabur grow even bigger as what it is now and become a global leader in the FMCG sector.