Melissa Kikizas S.A. distributes over 50,000 tons of pasta per year to thousands of retailers in Greece and across the European Union

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1 This article appeared in the JUL AUG SEP 2015 issue of insiderprofiles (insiderprofilesonline.com) and appears here with permission from WIS PUBLISHING. distributes over 50,000 tons of pasta per year to thousands of retailers in Greece and across the European Union 30 JUL AUG SEP 2015 Subscribe insiderprofilesonline.com today. Visit insiderprofilesonline.com

2 by Natalie Miller, Features Editor Enters a New Era of IT Greek Pasta Producer Integrates Operations Using Cloud Technology and Realizes Company-Wide Benefits Greece, the southernmost country in Europe best recognized for its ancient landmarks and golden sand beaches, is much less known for pasta production than its neighbor across the Ionian Sea. However, one family-owned Greek company has climbed to the top of the pasta food chain Melissa Kikizas S.A. has supplied pasta and durum wheat semolina both to the region and internationally for nearly 70 years. It is the largest pasta producer in Greece with a market share of approximately 35%. This success did not come without growing pains. With two main warehouses one at the headquarters in Athens, and the other at a factory in Larissa, 200 miles north of Athens as well as 20 satellite warehouses and distribution centers spread around Greece, Melissa s local software vendor was no longer able to meet its growing IT infrastructure needs. And with an expanding customer base across 35 countries, it became essential for Melissa to modernize its processes, centralize IT operations, and integrate all activities within its warehouse operations with an end-to-end solution. According to Leonidas Varvassenitis, Financial Director at Melissa, communication across departments was slow and insufficient with the current software, and it was difficult to know if everyone had the latest version of the information. The lack of timely, let alone real-time, information put the company at risk for mistakes and the exchange of inaccurate information. It also resulted in delayed reporting. To have the monthly results of the company, we had to wait until the middle of the next month, says Varvassenitis. After an evaluation process, Melissa selected SAP ERP because of its ability to adapt to Greek business methods and be used across all areas of the company. Cost-benefit and the experience of SAP s partners were additional considerations. AT A GLANCE Goals: Modernize and integrate systems processes in the cloud Strategy: Implement SAP ERP with IBM Private Cloud Outcome: Decreased warehouse inventory levels by 10%, improved cash flow and reduced delivery delays by 20%, and improved quality assurance and production monitoring through paperless reporting Subscribe today. Visit insiderprofilesonline.com JUL AUG SEP

3 Headquarters: Athens, Greece Industry: Food and beverage Employees: 250+ Revenue: $80 million Company details: Founded in 1947 Produces pasta and semolina Distributes over 50,000 tons of pasta per year to thousands of retailers in Greece and across the European Union SAP solutions: SAP ERP SAP BW SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions SAP EWM Partner solutions: IBM Private Cloud IBM Global Business Services IBM, a global SAP partner, consulted with Melissa on the SAP implementation and the cloud infrastructure through its Global Business Services. We measured our capabilities and the time frame that we had in front of us, Varvassenitis says. IBM s consultation on which areas should be implemented during what specific timeframe was very valuable to Melissa. (For more information about IBM, refer to the sidebar at the end of the article.) A move to the cloud was also an essential aspect of the success of this project and the future success of the company. The decision to outsource its infrastructure via private cloud was based on the company s limited on-premise capabilities and the many modules that needed to be implemented on the cloud platform. 32 JUL AUG SEP 2015 Subscribe insiderprofilesonline.com today. Visit insiderprofilesonline.com

4 Cloud Supports Path to Modernization The benefits of a cloud platform can be far reaching, and for Melissa, cost was the least compelling advantage. For Varvassenitis, cloud was essential first and foremost due to the requirements put forth by the company s risk management policy. Security risks increased with the full digitalization across the company, so it was not ideal to host the infrastructure in Melissa s office facilities. The first thing we realized was that we needed a professional infrastructure to host our system and our network facilities, and these things did not exist on our premises, he explains. In addition to protection against risk, the capabilities and role of Melissa s IT department shifted as well. Previously, the old system because of the minimal digitalization specifically in the production department was online just five days per week in two shifts. Now, with the full digitalization of all the departments, the factory can work continuously, 24/7. The cloud platform is able to support these additional requirements as well as offer the flexibility the pasta producer needed to increase or decrease IT capability based on customer demands, without the need to order and install new hardware. IBM s value didn t stop at providing the cloud infrastructure. Consultants offered valuable assistance and advice namely their recommendation of SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence (BI) solutions. With these solutions, executives at Melissa are able to prepare specific daily reports each morning that are accessible on laptops, tablets, and smartphones. These reports cover vital company information, from its cash position and sales to inventory levels and production, and the software allows executives to quickly prepare and share the documents with each other. Even if an executive is out of the office, access to these documents is available via a tablet or smartphone. The ability to have this information at one s fingertips can be essential to business profitability. For example, the price of wheat fluctuates daily, and as a critical raw material for the production of pasta, this data is of constant interest to Melissa executives. These capabilities are a very big improvement for us and give us the opportunity to reorganize immediately and build our daily strategy according to how the company is behaving, says Varvassenitis. Another tool critical to the success of Melissa s modernization is SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW). Gone are the days of disparate spreadsheets locked on the personal computers of employees. SAP BW now drives all of the company s reporting whether for stock levels, production quality, comparatives between actuals, budgets, previous year costs, material prices, and so on. These capabilities are a very big improvement for us and give us the opportunity to reorganize immediately and build our daily strategy according to how the company is behaving. Leonidas Varvassenitis, Financial Director, Challenges Along the Way According to Varvassenitis, the agreement for the SAP project covering SAP services and maintenance and IBM Cloud was signed with IBM at the end of 2012, and the 11-month project kicked off in January The implementation was not without its challenges to overcome. A midsized organization with 220 employees in Greece and another 50 in its subsidiary in Poland and other companies across Greece, Melissa s project members were required to serve dual roles fulfilling their duties to the project and continuing their daily work which often meant working extra hours and even weekends. It was a challenging task for Varvassenitis as project manager to organize all these tasks and for Melissa employees to participate on the project. With no prior experience working with SAP solutions, it took time to get employees familiar with SAP terminology and processes. For this reason, we had SAP training in the beginning of the project and very close monitoring and participation of the two teams through the entire implementation phase, explains Varvassenitis. Another crucial success factor of the project was working with SAP as a team, he continues. It s important to clearly understand and identify the risks, take action as Subscribe today. Visit insiderprofilesonline.com JUL AUG SEP

5 IBM Offers Fully Managed and Self-Service Cloud Options for Outsourcing SAP Infrastructures Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) can be the difference in beating competition to market. IaaS from IBM Cloud offers a choice of open cloud infrastructure services for IT operations. Companies can use SoftLayer self-service IaaS or fully managed IaaS to deploy both virtual and dedicated bare metal servers, develop applications, and run productionready workloads. The benefits to businesses are: Unparalleled performance consistent compute power and a high-performance global network for self-service IaaS Flexibility and breadth a range of options support a dynamic hybrid cloud strategy Complete control choose self-service with complete control or fully managed services Build your future on the SoftLayer global cloud infrastructure to enjoy self-service provisioning for both virtual and dedicated bare metal servers. With deployment in just minutes for virtual and hours for bare metal, self-service delivers the control and flexibility to power demanding cloud applications. A fully managed IaaS offers managed cloud services for critical enterprise workloads. IBM Cloud Managed Services provides a fully managed IaaS cloud optimized for critical enterprise workloads, offering service-level agreements with up to 99.95% virtual server uptime and the many advantages of a managed private cloud. For more information about IBM s IaaS offerings, visit and com/cloud-computing/us/en/products/ ibm-cloud-managed-services.html. early as possible, and resolve issues quickly as they arise. The strong cooperation with your partner is very critical. It s also important for the key stakeholders to have decision authority during the project. The more decision authority they have, the easier, faster, and better the project will run. No More Paper With SAP ERP and IBM Cloud, Melissa s departments and operations are now connected and the production team is not overrun with paperwork. With the previous system, we only had basic coordination and integration with only accounting and commercial integrated, explains Varvassenitis. With the new system, everything is integrated. This means all the sales production, accounting, controlling, reporting, quality, and warehouse management processes are no longer done either manually or via standalone spreadsheet tools. Nearly all operations were moved to SAP ERP on the private cloud, and after going live on January 1, 2014, the first material benefits that Melissa realized were regarding the stock levels. While not a main driver for the project, the shift to SAP ERP dropped warehouse inventory levels by 10%, which improved cash flow as well as reduced delivery delays by 20%. The deadline for monthly company results which previously could take weeks to report is now the third working day of the month. That is a huge improvement in this area, says Varvassenitis. The most significant benefit, apart from shrinking the stock levels and improvement on deliveries, is that this project ushered Melissa into a new era within its production department was the first year we were able to closely monitor production losses and improve them with clear benefits on the cost area, adds Varvassenitis. The lack of paperwork has greatly improved quality management and inspection, which is now done directly through the system. We have improved our quality monitoring and are able to have traceability of the goods, he says. Warehouse management has also improved across the company s satellite locations through SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM). And because of that, we have improved knowledge of stock levels and batch-level expedition of the goods. We managed to decrease the expired goods, and this is an additional cost benefit realized. There are improvements in almost every area of the company. The Road to Expansion We have to support and facilitate the new management, and a strategic goal of the project is to be altogether on the same platform, says Varvassenitis. The new platform will support Melissa s exports to more than 35 countries, as well as allow the company to find cost opportunities in other markets. As a unique distributor of Heinz products in Greece for the fifth year in a row, Melissa can realize more opportunity to strengthen its position in Greece as well as move forward internationally with these products. Poland is a very big opportunity for us, says Varvassenitis. Immediate plans are to increase our market share in Poland, to stabilize our presence in China, to expand in Northern Africa, and, of course, to keep improving our sales in the local market in Greece. Subscribe today. Visit insiderprofilesonline.com