Silversky, a pet food distributing company was started up in 2003 by two passionate animal lovers, Esmond and his wife.
Over time, Esmond began to realize the need to keep up with changing trends. He noticed that his company was heavily reliant on paperwork, causing human errors such as double entries of customers’ orders. Despite having an inventory and accounting system in place, both programmes were outdated, leading Esmond’s team to keep track of their sales, accounts and payroll via an excel sheets. This posed a risk as there was no back up of data.
As a result of the labour intensive process, Silversky’s operations were neither streamlined nor seamless. This prompted Esmond to reach out Vinod, our Business Advisor, in 2018, where he shared his struggles in running the business and sought advice to better enhance the company’s operations.
Digitizating operations
Vinod then conducted a business gap analysis with Esmond to identify external/internal factors that would have a direct influence on the company. After identifying the company’s strengths and weaknesses, Vinod advised Esmond to venture into digitalization to remain relevant and competitive within in its industry.
He recommended Esmond to purchase an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System which would enable the company to integrate and centralize its operations.
“With an ERP System in place, Silversky will be able to serve more customers with the same number of employees and even increase revenue in the long run. This will boost the company’s productivity and give it an edge over its competitors,” explained Vinod.
Vinod suggested Esmond to apply for the Capability Development Grant (CDG) to offset the cost of the ERP system. Through Vinod’s guidance, Silversky’s CDG grant application was approved and successfully received 50% funding for the system.
Today, Silversky operates through a centralized system that efficiently captures and monitors its incoming orders, sales as well as expenses such as payroll and inventory.
“The ERP system has allowed us to save a lot of time in manual labour by half. We have proper processes now and it has allowed us to focus on more important things like business development,” shared Esmond.