U3 SystemsWork and Marakisoft General Managers exchanged agreements, with witnesses in attendance.

U3 Ethiopia is excited to partner with Marakisoft to transform its supply chain business operations through the implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution! U3 currently operates Maraki’s government-approved point-of-sales (POS) system. The partnership builds on this core system to bring end-to -end automation to its core business processes, and a robust system to support key supply chain decisions.

U3 charted the way to automating its work processes leveraging Kaizen principles. Through a series of working sessions across its business units, the team worked together to perform a value stream map of its order-to-cash and procure-to-pay processes.  The team leveraged the process maps to identify areas of error, poor customer response, and waste to tackle.  They determined that an ERP system, integrated to the POS system used for invoicing (as government pre-approved system) and inventory management, would significantly reduce multiple entry of the same information, practically eliminate errors, and increase real-time visibility of inventory and order status. The ERP would enable each business unit, from sales to warehouse and inventory to finance, to focus on activities that add value to the business and most importantly to its customers.

Under the automated environment, a customer agent will be able to be at a customer site and enter an order into their tablet and directly into the system, replacing the reality of the current environment where orders can be taken over the phone and jotted down on a paper form.  Where orders were processed for shipment fulfillment based on handwritten information and notes and often incomplete product descriptions, the new system will enable automatic deductions from inventory and real-time customer invoicing, significantly easing the burden on the Finance team who manually entered order and issues information relying on handwritten orders.

This step of investing in decision support systems is U3’s commitment to professionalizing the private pharmaceutical sector in Ethiopia and strengthening its staying power long term. U3 is poised to better respond to customer needs in real-time with access and visibility to incoming supply and inventory, and access to statistical data based on previous demand and credit management, lifting patterns to enrich customer discussions and relationships.

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