Thursday, April 8, 2004

Oracle Corp is implementing its E-Business Suite for Raouf Ghabbour Investment Co, Egypt's leading automotive seller.

The Ghabbour Group chose to migrate from a Baan solution to Oracle to provide its 300-strong workforce with a single information source and create opportunities for increased productivity and a reduced operational cost base.

The company, which has been in operation since 1950, is a major player in the Middle East bus market and plans to expand its export operations to the European and African markets.

Dr Aram Youssef, vice-chairman, Raouf Ghabbour Investment Co, said: "We operate an extensive network across Egypt and the wider Middle East, in a very competitive and maturing market sector, with customers who demand the highest level of service and after-sales support.

"We wanted to improve profitability and communication between our branch network, and the Oracle E-Business Suite provides an integrated, up-to-date set of tools to manage those business objectives." A key element of the implementation is the deployment of Oracle Depot Repair, which delivers specific business benefits to automotive servicing organisations.

This solution manages a wide spectrum of repair types for Ghabbour's range of vehicles and provides the company's repair technicians across Egypt with access to a knowledge base for troubleshooting and diagnosing problems for improved productivity. It also helps ensure customer needs are met by giving repair technicians and depot managers a comprehensive view of customer information, and automates billing customers for repairs based on contractual entitlements.

The Ghabbour Group has also implemented Oracle Financial Analyser to provide current financial reporting for its management team.

The company relies on the Oracle Internet Developer Suite to develop its own bespoke applications as required, which then integrate with the Ghabbour Group's Oracle business solutions.

Oracle's strong presence in Egypt, combined with its local support and sterling customer base, secured the $350,000 contract over a number of other ERP vendors. Oracle's Egyptian partner, Cairo Information and Engineering Technology, implemented the solution, and will provide ongoing support and technical backup.

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