(1888PressRelease)
June 04, 2008 - London, UK - 23rd May 2008 - Sightsavers works with partners in 33 countries to help combat blindness and restore sight through specialist treatment and eye care. They also support people who are irreversibly blind by providing education, counselling and training.
Carole Webb, Procurement Officer, at Sightsavers said: "We needed a solution that would strengthen the effectiveness of Sightsavers' global procurement activities, reduce unnecessary administration time, eradicate duplication of effort and improve management information.
There was also a real need to replace the current paper-based system as there was no central record for activities carried out by the various departments at our Head Office in Haywards Heath, let alone our overseas offices." Carole added "We are a Procurement Team of 3 people and we have our work cut out with over 1000 products on the standard list of equipment that is procured and supplied to offices and partners around the world. The products vary greatly - from pharmaceuticals to vehicles and ophthalmic equipment to textbooks."
The Project Team conducted a formal tender process outlining Sightsavers' requirements - which included integration with their existing SunSystems financial accounting solution. Carole explained: "Sightsavers chose Proactis from Sapphire as it provides the functionality that our rigorous procurement procedures demand. Sapphire supports our SunSystems application, and so the fact that Sapphire can support both solutions was a plus point. What's more, the implementation of Proactis will provide us with a good opportunity to upgrade to the latest version of SunSystems too."
Nick Williams, Sightsavers' Account Manager at Sapphire, outlined three significant benefits that the organisation will see post-implementation. He said "A major consideration for Sightsavers is the low bandwidth internet connections available in many of the countries in which the organisation operates. Proactis facilitates worldwide use as users don't need to remotely login to a UK server-based system." He continued, "The Stores Module in Proactis will also prove a real benefit to Sightsavers as it will enable them to take advantage of economies of scale with functionality to efficiently manage storage, allocation of stock and deployment of their resources". Nick concluded, "Finally, as a web based solution that eliminates the need for paper-based reporting, Proactis offers a carbon neutral solution which is a real plus point for an environmentally-aware international organisation such as Sightsavers."
Of Sapphire, Carole said: "The Sapphire team was very helpful: they demonstrated the benefits of Proactis with workshops, gave us the ability to discuss our requirements in detail and subsequently demonstrated the solution in action with our own items and suppliers."
Looking ahead, Carole says: "We look forward to working together with Sapphire to achieve a successful implementation. When Proactis is implemented we'll receive support for the full procure-to-pay process - from sourcing to order placement and monitoring; as well as providing a wide range of management reporting options."
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