IN a bid to improve the company’s efficiency in delivering products to their customers, Indies Pharma Jamaica Limited has recently invested over $10 million in a project to install an integrated software solution to manage the entire business and purchase additional vehicles to improve their fleet.

“We are going to reduce the downtime which is operational efficiency. The customer service will be increased, we can track our products and our sales orders, and deliveries can be sent out swiftly to the customers. The company is investing a lot in this. We have also recently increased our delivery fleet by 40 per cent, and with this new software technology platform, the company is investing, with the delivery fleet and the technology and everything, more than $10 million,” Dr Guna Muppuri, principal founder and CEO of Indies Pharma Jamaica Limited, told the Business Observer.

“The key for any business to run these days is going to be technology. So from where we started 10 years back, the dynamics of the whole market and distribution and technology aspects have changed significantly, so we want to keep ourselves in tandem with the best technology, how best we can use it to increase operational efficiency. So this is where we did a lot of research and we are very fortunate to get it to use SAP systems, one of the greatest softwares developed in the world.”

Indies Pharma is a western Jamaican-based pharmaceutical company, which has grown significantly in the past 10 years since its establishment in Montego Bay.

“Today we have approximately 70 employees working with the group, and throughout the entire island you can find our products in every pharmacy, and in every hospital in the country,” Dr Muppuri said.

Dr Muppuri explained how the system will impact positively on the service to customers.

“For example, if a customer may have a query, instead of going through piles of invoices we just click on the system, and with a click of the button we are able to see a signed copy of the invoice that was returned from the customer and any period of time — it could be four years from now — we can always go back on the system to find that signed copy invoice from the customer. Even if there is a query from the customer’s point of view, we document that information, so if it’s even 10 years from now, we can pull up that information with a click of the button based on the system,” Dr Muppuri remarked.

Meanwhile, Edgar Blanco of Pioneer Business One noted that his company has successfully installed integrated software solution systems for businesses globally.

“We help small companies improve their business performance by providing them with a single, integrated software solution to manage their entire business,” Blanco explained.

“The scope of the project includes automation of the back office processes, accounting finance inventory, purchases, sales — not only the back office processes — but also the sales rep process information. So the sales reps are going to take orders truck inventory …. using the software as well.”

Ricardo Stephenson, senior accountant at Indies Pharma Jamaica Limited, was optimistic that the installation of the system would boost the company’s financial operations.

“We will have faster efficiency in terms of producing financial statements… the whole thing is designed to upgrade the operation’s rate of information,” Stephenson argued.