ZESPRI USES K2 TO DRIVE STANDARDIZATION AND INCREASE AGILITY
LOCATION
INDUSTRY
COMPANY PROFILE
SOFTWARE
SOLUTIONS
PARTNER PROFILE
BENEFITS
Mount Maunganui, New Zealand
Food and beverage
Headquartered in New Zealand, Zespri International Ltd. is the largest kiwifruit marketer in the world, exporting over 370,000 tons of fruit annually.
K2, Microsoft SharePoint, SAP, bespoke in-house applications
Purchase orders, invoice processing and more
Datacom provides reliable, innovative and industry-leading IT solutions and services.
Increased visibility
Full reporting capabilities
Better time management
Agility to deliver on changing business needs
Consistency for global operations
ZESPRI K2 CASE STUDY
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PROBLEMZespri’s reach is vast. It operates a global distribution network netting $1.5 billion in annual revenue, managed entirely by just 280 employees and a lean IT team.
With a bustling business, small staff and a far-reaching footprint, manual finance processes were a burden. They were slow, inconsistent and prone to error.
Zespri was primarily using email and paper-based processes to handle roughly 30,000 invoices per year from across the globe.
“We were using different processes in every market, and the lack of standardization was becoming a real issue for us,” said Gregg Liebenberg, solutions manager at Zespri International Ltd.
“And when we go into new markets, we want to roll out the processes we have in place, rather than set up new, unique processes in each location.”
Zespri also wanted a solution that would tie together its line-of-business systems and applications — SAP, SharePoint and in-house applications.
The company needed visibility to enforce compliance, and it needed a solution that would work, not just for finance, but for other departments and processes across the organization, as well.
“We were looking for a platform that we could make a part of the culture here at Zespri,” Liebenberg said.
SOLUTIONIn an effort to create a standard, simplified set of processes for dealing with paper and electronic invoices, Zespri implemented a financial efficiencies project (FEP). A major business initiative, FEP strove to drive consistency, automation and visibility for its global finance business processes.
Zespri deployed agile K2-based solutions — built by Datacom, a support partner in New Zealand — to automate and centralize processes for all its invoices and to address changing business needs. Zespri uses K2 smartforms to build forms on the fly, resulting in business applications that pull together data from SAP, SharePoint and other systems; allocate work to the right people; and can be rolled out to users fast.
Increased visibility and full reporting capabilities also allow Zespri to uncover process inefficiencies and make improvements to reduce risk. And it was easy to get started.
“The actual build of K2 was six weeks,” Liebenberg said. “Other technologies would have taken us three to six months or more.”
With the success of its initial K2 deployment, Zespri has five additional core processes earmarked for automation with K2 business applications in the near term, with an additional pipeline of projects slated for the future.
“As we become increasingly agile, we keep rolling out solutions to stay competitive in the marketplace,” Liebenberg said. “In terms of ease, speed and its integration with SAP, K2 has already paid for itself. We have saved thousands of dollars already.”
ZESPRI K2 CASE STUDY
