SAP to manage 5000 dealer network of Apollo Tyres

BANGALORE: Apollo Tyres, the Rs. 2300 crore, high performance tyre company has announced that it has successfully gone live with the SAP implementation. The SAP solution went live in a record time of ten months and now manages all the critical activities at Apollo Tyres Ltd.; including demand forecasting, production planning, production management, logistics management, supply chain management and sales management. The deployment will also enable Apollo Tyres Ltd. to better manage its extensive distribution network of over 5,000 dealers serviced through the company s 140 sales and distribution offices.

Apollo Tyres Ltd. has implemented the mySAP Business Suite of applications covering all functional areas including Supply Chain Optimisation and backend applications like Financials, Production, Human Resources and Materials Management. Going forward, Apollo Tyres Ltd. plans to implement Strategic Enterprise Management and CRM.

“The SAP implementation at Apollo Tyres is a strategic decision that will help us leverage the deployment of standardized best practices to achieve increased revenues and better customer satisfaction. We are operating in a high-cost, low-margin, and an extremely competitive environment and believe that the SAP implementation will give us a distinct competitive advantage. It is an investment we have made for the future which is beginning to payoff already” said Neeraj Kanwar, Chief Operating Officer, Apollo Tyres Ltd.

The SAP deployment at Apollo Tyres Ltd. has helped in reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by streamlining the business processes in keeping with the industry best practices, enhancement of productivity and consistency of information. As a result, business processes have become more vibrant and agile, while productivity at Apollo Tyres has also increased. The solution now allows the top management at Apollo Tyres to address the business with fact-based decision-making processes by providing a central view of all business processes.

Alan Sedghi, President and Managing Director, SAP Indian Subcontinent said,” In recent years, the Rs 12,000 crore Indian tyre industry has grown and become increasingly competitive. Companies are looking at consolidating their operations to become more competitive and offer their customers and vendors better service. We are delighted that Apollo Tyres chose SAP to help them streamline their business processes and manage their resources in an effective manner. We are confident that our solutions will put them on the right footing to continue on their success in the Indian and global markets.”

The SAP solution has been deployed at over 150 locations and around 450 users access this solution. The locations are connected by a VPN over leased lines. The SAP solution runs on an Oracle 9.6 database. IBM RS6000/ AXI operating system.

When Apollo Tyres was looking at various alternatives, it was looking for a centralised environment that would bring in the best practices from across the world. The choices were very clear as Apollo did not want to go in for a custom built or a tailored product. There were 2-3 leading ERP providers that Apollo looked at and there was a thorough evaluation of each vendor. SAP's offering suited Apollo's requirements the best.