During 2019 it became apparent that Amalgam’s systems would not be able to cope much longer with the growing complexity and volume of the business. Amalgam began a search for an integrated cloud solution that would meet its requirements. “It was vital the chosen solution would support the Chinese language and operate across China’s international firewall, which limited the shortlist considerably” explains Nadia Price, Chief Financial Officer at Amalgam Collection.

SAP Business ByDesign was selected following detailed walkthroughs and demos that demonstrated its capabilities, in particular its ability to operate multiple financial entities and VAT registrations in one database, a key requirement for the company. As Amalgam had already been operating from several locations, running the selection process remotely during the pandemic was not a problem. A partner agency was engaged to ensure that requirements, gaps and functionality were clearly articulated and understood by both English and Chinese speaking users. As an experienced SAP partner, Codestone was selected to implement SAP Business ByDesign with across the Amalgam organisation.

The solution went live with SAP Business ByDesign cloud supporting all end-to-end finance operations including order to cash, procure to pay and finished goods stock control. The manufacturing module was activated later covering work orders, bills of materials, bills of operation and production models, all fully integrated with the finance operations. Training was cascaded down to around 70 users through key users, in both English for UK and Hungary users, and China-based staff in Chinese.

The benefits of have been significant, bringing discipline and clarity to Amalgam’s business.

Codestone assisted Amalgam to do a cost/benefit analysis of each area of the system as the planning and implementation progressed. “This analysis meant that we avoided potential costs to implement capabilities that wouldn’t deliver significant returns, such as the returns and repairs functionality,” continues Nadia.

The solution has changed behaviours across the organisation as it forces compliance with key processes such as spend approvals and supplier invoice/PO matching, ensuring essential data is captured, improving the accuracy of reporting and increasing clarity. Individual operating entities now understand better the requirements of different markets in terms of the paperwork required for exports and tax reporting.

Amalgam sells to a wide spectrum of customers from individual direct customers to automotive manufacturers and large retailers, each with their own processes which Amalgam needs to integrate with. SAP ByDesign has the flexibility to interact with customers and suppliers in the most efficient way.

As a global operation manufacturing in 3 countries and selling to over 70 countries, Amalgam’s tax compliance is complex. Nadia highlights, “SAP ByDesign has enabled us to significantly reduce the time taken to complete VAT returns for six registrations, and it is now much easier to add a new registration when we need to. It’s been a real game changer for us in finance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, saving some 3-4 man days at each month end.”

Reporting is also vastly improved with visibility of the finances for all of Amalgam’s entities readily accessible, giving a corporate-wide view or a drill down to individual locations. “With real time dashboards our CEO has a real-time view of the business at his fingertips and has been known to refresh the data hourly as we approach month end!” says Nadia.