Business changes prompt Zespri review

By ADAM GIFFORD

Kiwifruit distribution and marketing company Zespri International is reviewing its five-year-old SAP software system in light of changes to its business.

"We have not made any decision to replace SAP but we are looking at the market to see if there are better options," said chief information officer Grahame Coles.

"It is a question of fit. We have gone from being an exporter of New Zealand kiwifruit to one with plantings of Zespri gold around the world, marketing fruit 12 months a year ... We need to look at the cost of amending the application to fit, compared with a full replacement."

Zespri has SAP financial, sales and marketing and supply chain modules.

It runs version 4.1 of SAP R/3, rather than the more recent version 4.6, which comes with the new MySAP.com licence structure.

"That licence upgrade is part of the cost of keeping SAP, which is why we are assessing the options," Coles said.

Zespri accounts filed with the Companies Office show it spent $13.7 million buying and installing software in the three years to March last year.

Coles said that although only a small part of the company's $800 million business involved fruit grown overseas, that percentage was expected to increase.

Meanwhile, most of the supply chain and demand planning work for that fruit was done on spreadsheets.

Coles said Zespri was looking at products from tier one and two vendors.

"Despite the size of the business there are only 150 users at Zespri, so we find ourselves sort of between two stools."

The company hopes to have a shortlist by the end of next month, and a decision by November.

As part of its restructuring, Zespri has moved its head office from Auckland to Tauranga and cut its information systems department from 30 to 14.

Eight staff moved to Tauranga, but six decided to leave. Replacements should be chosen this week.

Coles said Zespri contracted out the running of its Compaq Alpha servers to Datacom in January, and would continue with such a deal whatever application was chosen.

Apple exporter Enza has decided to stick with SAP after a similar exercise.