SHANELL LIMITED

Shanell Limited, a large plastic materials distributor of over 100,000 metric tons a year, has reaped all the power of the human-side solution, FLP^® Enterprise Management Sytem. At a high return of investment and low implementation cost, Shanell is now running under corporate roof of business operations, before which the company was under family-style management where profit was eroded by inefficiency. Alan Chiu, CEO of Shanell Limited, looked for a place to re-organize his company. Then he met IBM partner Ultra Active Technology Ltd (UAT) who turned his problem into a company-wide solution, the FLP^® solution.

Once implemented, Shanell reaped the benefits almost immediately.

Communicate Prices Immediately
On the onset, the solution, which was based on Lotus Domino allowed Shanell to communicate prices immediately to its front line sales team. Since price fluctuation occurs on a daily basis, the new solution allowed the company to let their front line sales team know sell price quickly.

Accurate Quotations and Invoices
Prices were also more accurate as price details were only needed to be updated once and would be reflected throughout the system. This allowed Shanell to eliminate precious man hours wasted in correcting quotations and invoices, which plagued the company previously. At the same time, with less human error, the operation costs were drastically reduced.

Sharpen Competitiveness
Competitiveness was also sharpened as the senior management was able to know in real-time where their respective businesses are heading. The solution allowed them to retrieve business status in a second, and allowed them to react to changing market condition quickly by developing alternative business strategies or modifying existing ones.

Top Level Customer Relationship
Customer relationship, which was the key problem in the previous setup, was brought to a whole new level. With all relevant customer data kept in one central database, the solution allowed Shanell to preserve its relationships even if key staff left the company. It also allowed new salespeople to get acquainted with the customers quickly. It improved time for processing accounts, since all relevant details can be retrieved immediately when customers enquire for it.

Tighten Credit Control
Credit control was tightened with features such as credit status search and sales approval workflow. Since the system was imbued with accounting best practices right from its inception, the accounting books were kept updated and allowed the senior management to breath easier during company audits.

File Documents Electronically
With the documents filed electronically, Shanell cut through its towering paperwork and allowed their staff more time to do more productive tasks. Both Lotus Domino and Lotus Notes also improved knowledge management by allowing staff to share experiences and relevant information with colleagues in different department or with new staff.

Instant Business Information On-Demand
Best of all, Mr Chiu had more time to himself. He no longer had to wait for printed reports before realizing how well his company is doing. All he had to do now is to remotely connect through the company's virtual private network to assess his business's health online, in real time, improving overall business visibility.