SAP to develop sales system for Swift Foods

Food and beverage giant RFM Corp. has tapped SAP Philippines to implement enterprise resource planning solutions for its subsidiary, Swift Foods with the goal of developing a superior sales, logistics and distribution system.

Jose Concepcion III, RFM president and chief executive officer, explained that Swift Foods will be the main vehicle for distributing food and beverage products or consumer products of RFM and its subsidiaries so there will be one sales and distribution group for the whole RFM organization.

"We believe in technology and how it can enhance critical business processes like generating timely and accurate information at all levels needed for a seamless supply chain system and in enhancing greater productivity in all our operations. We therefore put into reality our intention to leverage technology to position ourselves competitively in the new millennium," he said.

According to Concepcion, the company's investment in SAP's enterprise technology is expected to impact greatly on their ability to track, analyze and respond to movements, costs and trends in existing and new product categories, existing and new accounts and channels of distribution and changes in geographical coverage.

He declined to provide any figure as to how much RFM will pour into the endeavor.

Lolita C. Ramos, RFM vice president and chief information officer, noted that SAP has a lot of best business practices incorporated in its product that will be very important for the firm.

Ramos expects the first phase of the SAP implementation -- including modules for supply chain management, sales, logistics, warehouse management and financials -- to be completed in a few.

If all goes well and on schedule, she said the company will implement SAP's production solution in a second phase, and begin to roll out SAP to other RFM subsidiaries.