About the client
T-Pay is the official distributor of the single top-up card (STC) for the services of the all-Russian cell phone operator “MegaFon”. The company carries out the promotion of cell service top-up cards across Russia. Currently there are 7 branches in central cities of Federal Districts that distribute STCs through a dealer network, which includes over 250 dealers.
Situation
From the very beginning T-Pay select the course of intensive business development across the country, which involved opening regional offices and constructing a dealer network for the distribution of MegaFon service top-up cards. Under the functioning conditions of a geographically diffused company structure the goal of the project was to ensure transparency and manageability of T-Pay as a whole. In order to accomplish the set target it was necessary to automate the main business processes and create a corporate management system. During the project the prospects of improving management of finances, logistics, procurement and sales planning laid ahead, as well as ensuring operations of branches and the parent company within a unified information space.
Choice of solution
The key software solution that became the foundation for the centre of the company’s resource management was the Microsoft Dynamics AX system. This choice was made because of the flexibility of setup and the possibility of expanding the functionality of Microsoft Dynamics AX to include individual requirements of the company’s business, thus allowing to significantly reduce risks and decrease the time needed to integrate the solution with other software products.
Another important factor in the selection of Microsoft Dynamics ŔX was the modern architecture of the solution, which guarantees maintaining of high productivity even under significant load of the system and large volumes of information being processed. This characteristic of the system is extremely important for a distribution company, which strives to actively develop its partner network, thus increasing volumes of business.
At the same time powerful functionality of Microsoft Dynamics ŔX allows to efficiently solve tasks of optimizing control over financial activities of the company and over work with external organizations – suppliers and dealers. Implementation of the solution provides the possibility to form consolidated reporting on company scale and receive detailed reports on the performance of each branch. Planning the trading and procurement activities of the company helps construct the optimum design of interaction with partners by accounting of batches in warehouses, reserving ordered goods, controlling shipment terms and payments.
When selecting the executor for the project T-pay top management based its decision on the IT-company’s experience of successful implementations within holding structures, the positive reputation of the team of business consultants and the recommendations of other clients. GMCS was the company selected.
Solution
The main tasks of the project were the implementation of the financial module and the supply chain management module, as well as the launch of the “Long-term and Short-term Planning” block. The order of works was predetermined by the level of priority of tasks being accomplished. Thus, during the first stage bookkeeping, tax and managerial accounting were automated. Then GMCS optimized logistics management, and later implemented long and short term planning of procurement and shipping.
The project started in spring 2006 in the companies head office located in Saint-Petersburg and involved automation of all 7 T-Pay branches in the Central, North-West, Southern, Near-Volga, Siberia and Far East districts.
The specifics of activities of the head office required a separate approach to designing the functionality of the automation solution. This was related to the head office’s need to receive up to date and reliable information on consolidated reporting across all company branches, which was accounted for when developing the systems.
As part of the works being carried out flexible setup of the system was conducted with account of vertical and horizontal data filtering, which allows users to construct various reports according to their functional activity and attachment to a branch.
During the project Microsoft Dynamics AX was integrated with business applications used by T-Pay, thus ensuring storage and use of data within a unified information space for all regional offices. Integration of Microsoft Dynamics AX with the Electronic Payments System (EPS), which is aimed at managing the life cycle of a product, allowed to obtain information on the logistics of cards, starting from the moment of their procurement and up to pre-activation and shipping to the dealer. The interfaces developed by GMCS specialists helped avoid manual data entry within logistics and financial modules of the two systems, eliminate double entry, simplify and speed up receipt of information for various reporting forms.
Simultaneously to the implementation of the solution comprehensive training was conducted of work group specialists and key regional users of the system.
The duration of works on the project amounted to 9 months.
After the completion of the project T-Pay continues to collaborate with GMCS, receiving technical and consulting support on issues related to work within the system.
Results
Having completed the implementation of financial modules of Microsoft Dynamics AX, T-Pay obtained a modern tool for bookkeeping, tax and managerial accounting. Automation of the logistics module allows the distributor to efficiently manage the STC chain of supply to regions. Thanks to the implemented planning mechanism T-Pay received the possibility to create plans of its trading and procurement activities based on minimum warehouse stocks of cards, client orders and sales forecasts according to seasonal demand fluctuations. Due to the integration of software projects a unified information environment for efficient management of the whole enterprise has been created based on Microsoft Dynamics AX.
As a result T-Pay solved issues of routine receipt of consolidated information on the activities of all branches, reduced the risks of managerial decision-making by increasing reliability of data. When disposing of all necessary reporting on the state of the warehouse and cash flow the company can quickly adjust procurement and sales plans and acts as a reliable partner for suppliers and dealers of produce.
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