Industry: Precious Metals / Mineral Mining
Employees: Approximately 500 full-time in two international locations
Solution: appsFreedomTM platform
The Challenge
Since 2006, the rise in value of precious metals such as gold and iron ore has fueled the growth of this Toronto, Canada-based exploration and development mining company. With such fast growth, the company determined that investing in SAP was mission-critical to keep operations on track with an enterprise-grade ERP solution.
While relying on SAP, the company effectively managed growth and expanded operations to a new mining location in Brazil. Executives were accessing SAP from desktops and laptops to review and approve purchase orders and requisitions necessary to build out the new mining location. But their busy travel schedules, combined with a cumbersome system user interface, made navigating the system and managing procurement activity a chore.
The issues were triggering project delays and started a negative chain reaction that was increasingly costing the company valuable time and money. It was also impacting productivity of the new location build out. They needed a more user-friendly way to access the system from BlackBerry smartphones to keep activity at the new mining location on schedule.
The Solution
The appsFreedom team deployed and customized its pre-built Purchase Order / Purchase Requisition app. The app designed for smartphones and tablet devices is seamlessly integrated into the organization’s on-premise SAP system.
Executives now have a simple mobile app on their BlackBerry smartphones that offers a user-friendly interface and anytime, anywhere access to SAP. Simple alerts notify executives in near real-time when purchase orders and requisitions are pending in their queue. And executives can take immediate action with just a few clicks to approve or reject pending items.
The app is helping to keep business moving forward and has given the company the ability to keep construction and mining activity on schedule as planned.
Deployed in just weeks, appsFreedomTM delivers new levels of speed and efficiency by simplifying SAP access to the organization’s on-premise system from BlackBerry smart phones. Better still, no system development or configuration was required.
The Business Benefits
Business Process Optimization
The app allows executives to access SAP anytime even while traveling internationally speeding procurement decisioning and streamlining mission-critical activities of the company’s mining project logistics. Ultimately, process efficiencies get passed down the entire value chain.
Better User Experience
Executives no longer have to find an office and network-connected computer to access the SAP in order to manage the purchasing process. They also no longer need to navigate the complex SAP user interface, helping to reduce training and support costs.
Fast, Measurable ROI
The solution was deployed in just weeks for BlackBerry smartphones, although ultimately, works across mobile platforms should the company add or replace mobile devices. Fast deployment also meant fast ROI and low maintenance costs, both now and in the future.