How Gopal Namkeen modernized its order-processing system to improve dealer experience

How Gopal Namkeen modernized its order-processing system to improve dealer experience

by Ritesh Ladwa, Ashish Patel, Lankit Patel, and Parth Devdhar | on 27 JUL 2022 |

Start Date Of Engagement: 7-7-2022
End Date Of Engagement: 20-08-2022
Date the project entered production: 10-08-2022

Gopal Namkeen is one of the oldest and leading Indian brands, supplying namkeen and snacks in national and international markets. Gopal Namkeen was founded in 1994 and is headquartered at Rajkot, in the state of Gujarat, India.

Business Challenge

Gopal Namkeen has over 500 dealers, creating more than 12,000 SKU orders on a peak day. Order creation also involves integration with a backend enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Gopal Namkeen was using an old web portal to get orders from its dealers. This also involved bulk transactions because a majority of dealers buy wholesale products. Its underlying dealer portal application architecture had traditional hosting and was not optimized for speed and integration. In response, it was becoming sluggish as the number of transactions grew, and the user interface was hard to navigate and difficult to extend.

Dealer experience is critical to the growth of Gopal Namkeen’s business. Therefore, it was looking for an industry-standard solution that was scalable and secure and had dynamic integration features with the SAP S/4HANA system hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Business Solution

Gopal Namkeen decided to modernize its dealer order-processing system with the following key features and solution requirements:

1) Secure and scalable as per user load

2) Dynamic, secure, and seamless integration with the SAP S/4HANA system on AWS

3) Responsive and extendable user interface

4) Optimized cost and resource usage

Gopal Namkeen worked alongside AeonX Digital, an AWS Partner, to modernize its dealer order-processing system. AeonX Digital is an IT company that primarily focuses on implementation, migration, and development of AWS and SAP workloads.

The AeonX team proposed a business solution in the form of a web portal, which is accessible to all dealers from the internet, and bridges the gap between dealers and the SAP system. Key modules of the solution and their respective process details are mentioned below.

  • Application Security: The system is designed to handle three types of roles: dealers, administrators, and developers. The system authenticates each user and redirects them to their respective dashboard. Users can access permissions according to their responsibilities. Permission allows granular control over every feature on the order portal, and any feature can be constrained within the order portal for security.
  • Dashboards: There are eight near-real-time metrics for the admin dashboard and six near-real-time metrics for the dealer dashboard. Near-real-time metrics—like weekly orders, top five products sales, top five dealers, top five regions, and more—are available for informed decision-making.
  • Dealer Management: The dealer cannot be created from the order portal. It can only be pushed from the SAP system. Dealer data is pushed from SAP, and it goes through the approval system where the admin can accept or reject a dealer. Upon acceptance, the admin creates credentials and communicates them to the respective dealer.
  • Order Master Data: Products, prices, taxes, and other relevant SAP master data are also pushed to the dealer order portal. Products then go through an approval system where the admin can accept or reject a product. Upon acceptance, the admin assigns a region(s) and publishes a product. Then all the dealers in its respective region(s) can use a product to create an order.
  • Orders: Dealers generate orders on the portal and then sync them with the SAP system at regular intervals. The dealer can also download the product catalog as an Excel file and use a bulk-order creation process. The dealer can create orders only with an available credit balance. The credit balance is validated with the SAP system. When the credit balance is insufficient, the system can save the order in draft mode. After receiving payment from the vendor, the system automatically releases the credit block with the help of live integration with SAP. Dealers can track the order status and download a statement of account.

Solution Architecture

The web portal is accessed on the internet and served through Amazon CloudFront, which is a content delivery network (CDN) service to deliver content securely with low latency and high transfer speeds worldwide. Requests then route through the Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), which distributes network traffic to improve application scalability, to serve dynamic content through origin servers hosted on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud.

The dealer order-processing system is developed with the latest JavaScript and PHP Laravel framework, which supports a responsive front end and backend through integration with the SAP system. It is deployed on Apache Web Server running on Amazon Linux AMI.

The API backend is the core integration feature between the dealer order-processing system and SAP backend. Materials, dealers, and prices are maintained using APIs. SAP has full control over this master data. API requests and responses are in a standardized JSON format and secured with a HASH token for extra security. The system is also benchmarked for high concurrent requests.

The SAP S/4HANA system is managed by a different AWS SAP Competency Partner and hosted in an isolated Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), which gives you full control over your virtual networking environment, within the same AWS Region. The Amazon VPC that hosts the dealer order-processing system communicates with SAP S/4HANA, which hosts the Amazon VPC through a secure VPC peering connection.

The application uses the latest version of MariaDB-based data stores for storing the relational data of its respective application module. The application and database are hosted on an Amazon EC2 Linux server based on an AWS Graviton processor. AWS Graviton processors are designed by AWS to deliver the best-priced performance for cloud workloads running in Amazon EC2.

Results

The dealer order-processing modernization solution went live in April 2022.

Since then, dealers have used the completely automated and flexible order-processing system. The system has helped reduce dealer onboarding time by 50 percent and business support calls by 60 percent and improved the overall dealer experience. Since it went live, the system hasn’t faced any downtime, even during peak orders, boosting dealer satisfaction and trust with Gopal Namkeen. Gopal Namkeen has also realized a cost benefit of over 47 percent without compromising performance by using AWS Graviton processor-based Amazon EC2 Instances.

Gopal Namkeen was using an old web portal to get orders from its dealers. This also involved bulk transactions because a majority of dealers buy wholesale products. Its underlying dealer portal application architecture had traditional hosting and was not optimized for speed and integration. In response, it was becoming sluggish as the number of transactions grew, and the user interface was hard to navigate and difficult to extend.

Learn more

Modern companies are increasingly global, and their products are increasingly digital. These digital products—such as cloud infrastructure, mobile apps, big data pipelines, and social media—are influencing application development, which, in turn, requires an unprecedented pace of change for companies.

Learn more about important best practices, design patterns, and modern application pathways that you can use to build your modern application in the AWS Cloud at “Build modern applications on AWS.”

AWS Partner Spotlight

AeonX Digital helps customers reach their business performance goals through SAP. Working in SAP application management services, sales, and SAP education and training domain, AeonX Digital helps companies to build and deploy resilient cloud applications at scale.

Ritesh Ladwa

Ritesh Ladwa is the general manager of IT at Gopal Snacks Pvt Ltd. Ritesh is responsible for the entire IT infrastructure of the company and operations of SAP S/4HANA in the organization. His expertise covers automated processes and digital transformation.

Ashish Patel

Ritesh Ladwa is the general manager of IT at Gopal Snacks Pvt Ltd. Ritesh is responsible for the entire IT infrastructure of the company and operations of SAP S/4HANA in the organization. His expertise covers automated processes and digital transformation.

Lankit Patel

Lankit Patel is a lead engineer at AeonX Digital. Lankit is responsible for the development of Dealer Order Portal and API integration with SAP S/4HANA backend.

Parth Devdhar

Parth Devdhar is a solutions architect at AeonX Digital. Parth is responsible for designing technical solutions that adhere to AWS Well-Architected best practices.

Gopal Namkeen ScanX

Gopal Namkeen ScanX

Start Date Of Engagement: 17-09-2022
End Date Of Engagement: 27-10-2022
Date the project entered production: 17-10-2022

Gopal Namkeen is one of the oldest and leading Indian brands, supplying namkeen and snacks in national and international markets. Gopal Namkeen was founded in 1994 and is headquartered at Rajkot, in the state of Gujarat, India.

Customer Challenge

Gopal Namkeen was facing challenges in tracking their products if there is a lack of real-time updates or information regarding the product’s shipping status. They also had difficulty identifying their products if the product codes or identification numbers were not clearly labelled or easily accessible. Furthermore, Gopal Namkeen faced challenges in knowing the location of their products during the shipping and delivery process, especially if there were multiple delivery locations or if the product is being shipped internationally.

Why did Gopal Namkeen choose AeonX?

AeonX Digital are an advanced tier partner and have been in this industry for 7 years. Gopal Namkeen approached several partners although AeonX was the only one who could complete it within a specific period of time.

For a company like Gopal Namkeen, which is involved in the production and distribution of snack foods, having an effective and efficient order processing and inventory management system is critical. By using AeonX, they were able to improve their supply chain management, product identification and overstocking, and ensure that they are meeting customer demand in a timely manner.

In addition, AeonX may also offer reporting and analytics features that allow businesses to gain insights into their operations, which can be used to optimize performance and make data-driven decisions. Overall, the decision to choose AeonX likely comes down to the specific needs and goals of the business and how well the platform aligns with those needs.

AeonX Solution

The project involves the development of a bar code reading system and a sales order integration system for dispatches. The solution will be hosted in a development environment for testing by both AeonX and Gopal Snacks teams to ensure end-to-end portal functionalities are in place. Any issues or improvements discovered during testing will be addressed, and the system updated accordingly.

Once the sales order is received by ScanX, it will be mapped onto individual lines that represent each product or service requested by the customer. This helped Gopal Namkeen to ensure that the correct items are picked and shipped as per the customer needs.

By using ScanX to process sales orders, businesses can improve the accuracy and efficiency of their order fulfillment process, leading to increased customer satisfaction and repeat business.

Finally, the system will go live, with one month of go-live support provided to ensure a smooth transition. Overall, this comprehensive approach by AeonX ensures that the solution is thoroughly tested, updated, and implemented to meet the needs of Gopal Snacks.

Results and Benefits

Gopal Namkeen faced several challenges in product tracking and identification, including a lack of real-time updates, unclear product codes, and difficulty in knowing the location of their products during shipping and delivery.

By addressing these challenges, they improved their efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer satisfaction. They achieved this through implementing better tracking systems and processes that provide real-time updates, clearer product codes and identification numbers, and improved logistics planning. They also ensured timely and accurate dispatch, as it’s important for businesses to have a streamlined process in place. This may involve assigning specific personnel to handle dispatch, using barcode scanners to quickly identify and locate items, and utilizing a dispatch management system to track the progress of each order.

Ultimately, improving their product tracking and identification through our AeonX ScanX solution can benefit Gopal Namkeen in various ways and help them to stay competitive in their industry.

BVG Group Custom Solutions

BVG Group Custom Solutions

Start Date Of Engagement: 13-08-2022
End Date Of Engagement: 25-09-2022
Date the project entered production: 15-09-2022

Executive Summary

One of India’s Largest Integrated Services Company! BVG (Bharat Vikas Group) was started in 1997 with the motive of creating job opportunities for rural youth. Beginning with 8 people team, now BVG’s manpower strength has reached to 56,000+ across the country.

BVG provides various services, which includes Mechanized Housekeeping, Landscaping and Gardening, Civil and Electrical Maintenance, Fabrication Services, Turkey Solutions, Logistics Support & many more services required by any organization. We work with philosophy of partnership and help our customers to focus on their core areas by managing their non-core activities.

Customer Challenge

The BVG Group faced several challenges with their SAP system in the past. Real-time data was not available in SAP, and consumption data was received only at the end of each month in an Excel file. As a result, entries had to be posted in SAP manually, which was time-consuming and prone to errors.

Additionally, there was no Purchase Requisition Creation or Approval process in place, which made it difficult to manage procurement efficiently. They had over 1000 sites, and end-users at different locations did not have access to laptops or desktops, which made it challenging to update the system in real-time.

There was no integration with SAP, which resulted in challenges related to stock variance in SAP and real-time reporting. Furthermore, there were issues related to unit of measure (UOM) as the supplier provided materials in boxes, but the UOM in SAP was each, which required manual adjustments before posting entries in SAP.

Overall, these challenges posed a significant obstacle to the BVG Group operations, and they had to rely on manual processes to manage their inventory, procurement, and reporting.

Architecture and Technology for New Interface

Why did BVG Group choose AeonX?

The BVG Group chose AeonX as their solution provider for several reasons. AeonX had a wealth of experience and expertise in the industry, with a reputation for delivering successful projects. The technological capabilities of them were also impressive, providing the BVG Group with confidence in the quality of their services.

AeonX presented a compelling proposal that met the needs of the BVG Group and aligned with their business objectives. The BVG Group appreciated AeonX’s approach to the project and their willingness to work closely with them to achieve their goals. The BVG Group also considered factors such as cost, timeframe, and the level of support and communication provided by them. After conducting a thorough evaluation of several potential partners, the BVG Group determined that AeonX was the most suitable partner for their project.

Overall, the BVG Group was impressed with AeonX’s reputation, expertise, technological capabilities, and approach to the project. They believed that AeonX could provide the solutions and support necessary to help them achieve their goals and improve their operations.

AeonX Solution

AeonX provides a robust cloud solution with unlimited user access that seamlessly integrates with SAP for processes such as booking purchase requisitions, goods receipts, and goods issue at project/site locations. The web application created by AeonX includes all the required fields for PR creation, goods receipts, and goods issue. The application stores data into a database and transfers the same to SAP server through APIs. A workflow approval process is also integrated into the application for all the transactions, ensuring a smooth approval process.

To monitor integrations and provide easy access to transactions, AeonX creates a custom cockpit in SAP. Users can view PRs, generate POs, perform goods receipt, invoice receipt, and goods issue in SAP against PO with a single click, based on data received through API. In case of incomplete integration requests, AeonX provides a retry button for easy completion of the integration process. If required, this activity can also be performed in the background without any user intervention, ensuring maximum efficiency and productivity.

Results and Benefits

After partnering with AeonX Digital, BVG Group was able to overcome the challenges they faced with their SAP system. AeonX implemented a real-time integration between SAP and a new interface, enabling BVG Group to access real-time data and manage their procurement and inventory processes more efficiently.

To ensure that inventory management is more streamlined, they set up a system where ROL is maintained at the project level. Additionally, master data such as item master, vendor master, and project master are created in SAP and then flown to the new application, ensuring data consistency and accuracy. To manage procurement efficiently, they set up a Purchase Requisition Creation and Approval process, ensuring that the procurement process is streamlined and transparent. This also enables the BVG group to manage their procurement activities more efficiently.

With transaction data like Purchase Requisition, Good Receipt, Consumption, Stock Transfer, Physical Inventory, Invoice Booking, and Payment Release being done in SAP and flown to the new application, the customer can now access PR → PO → GRN → Payment flow in the new application, ensuring greater visibility and transparency.

The new application also includes Email Notification and Approval process, enabling efficient communication between the different teams and stakeholders involved in the procurement process. A custom dashboard and report generation feature are also available in the new application, enabling the customer to extract relevant data and insights to make informed decisions.

Overall, the solution provided by AeonX has helped the BVG Group to overcome the challenges they faced in the past and enabled them to manage their inventory and procurement activities more efficiently. The real-time integration between SAP and the new application has also enabled the customer to access real-time data, leading to improved decision-making, streamlined processes, and increased efficiency.

ITDC SUPPLIERX

ITDC SUPPLIERX

Executive Summary:

ITD Cementation India Limited (ITD Cementation) has been a silent contributor to the infrastructure growth in the country for over eight decades. ITD Cementation has successfully maintained its position as a market leader in the field of Maritime Structures and Foundations. ITD Cementation is a preferred contractor for Highways, Bridges, Flyovers, Industrial Structures and has established a strong presence in Tunnels, Dams and other Infrastructure projects.

With its eight-decade reputation of constructing some of the most prestigious & vital projects, ITD Cementation has an array of Infrastructure projects to showcase. They include large commercial and institutional buildings, elevated highways, viaducts, railways, elevated and underground metro rail, airports, water and waste water treatment plants, pumping stations, water conveying piping and utilities.

In recent years, ITD Cementation India Private Limited has received several awards for their excellent work, including the Best Infrastructure Company award from CNBC TV18 and the Outstanding Concrete Structure Award from the Indian Concrete Institute.

Overall, ITD Cementation India Private Limited is a reputable and reliable construction company that is well-equipped to handle a wide range of construction projects with a commitment to safety, sustainability, and innovation.

Customer Challenge:

ITD Cementation faced several challenges in developing a self-registration portal for prospective vendors. They needed a solution that could capture relevant data and documents, validate email and mobile numbers, and support field-based workflow approval systems with sequential and parallel approval workflows for different departments. The portal also needed to integrate with SAP to create vendor codes and prevent duplicate vendor code creation.

To add to the complexity, the customer needed to ensure that relevant copies of certificates received from vendors were stored as per mandatory requirements and also validates MSME vendors, and captures the name of the proprietor as per PAN card and trade name as per trade license. They also need to have a role-based user ID creation and management system and an audit log available for every process. A dashboard/MIS needs to be in place to track requests generated, status, and user base pending cases, and audit reports to track turnaround time. The challenge requires an efficient and robust solution to be developed to ensure seamless vendor registration and management.

Architecture and Technology Interface:

Why did ITD Cementation choose AeonX?

ITD Cementation chose AeonX as their partner to develop the self-registration portal for prospective vendors due to the companys expertise in developing such complex solutions. AeonXs experience in developing similar portals and providing end-to-end solutions was a key factor in their selection.

AeonXs team of experts demonstrated their technical capabilities in developing a portal that met all of ITD Cementations requirements, including the integration with SAP, role-based user ID creation, and management, and the validation process for MSME vendors.

Furthermore, AeonXs approach to project management, including agile methodologies, and their emphasis on communication and collaboration with ITD Cementations team, ensured that the project was completed on time and within budget. Overall, AeonXs expertise, technical capabilities, and project management approach made them the ideal partner for ITD Cementation to develop a robust and efficient self-registration portal for prospective vendors.

AeonX Solution:

AeonX provided a comprehensive solution for the development of a self-registration portal for prospective vendors for the client. The solution includes auto-fetching of details based on PAN/GST verification API, mandatory attachments such as PAN, GST, MSME (if applicable), and bank details, and an email/mobile-based validation process. The solution also supports a configurable business rule engine, sequential and parallel workflow approval, and multiple levels of approval mechanisms for vendor creation and vendor master data change requests.

The integration with SAP enables the passing of data and the creation of a business partner for both the company code and purchasing organization, while the facility to add multiple companies and purchasing organizations for BP creation/extension enhances the flexibility of the solution. Moreover, AeonXs solution ensures the prevention of duplicate data creation based on vendor name, GSTIN, PAN, and bank account number and provides a validation system for MSME vendors and proprietor/trade name capture. With a dashboard/MIS for tracking total requests generated, status, and user base pending cases, an audit log available for every process, and audit reports to track turnaround time, AeonXs solution provides a comprehensive and robust self-registration portal for the client.

Results and Benefits:

The implementation of the Self-Service portal for registered Vendors and SAP integration has brought numerous benefits to the company. With the PO/WO view and download facility, vendors can easily access and download their purchase orders and work orders, reducing communication time with the companys procurement team. The facility to upload ASN with QR Code Generation and POD, and get GRN/SES status on the portal through sync with SAP, has improved transparency and efficiency in the supply chain process. Vendors can now easily track the status of their goods and streamline the delivery process. The facility to check vendor outstanding along with ageing and view Ledger report and Balance confirmation report has improved vendor management and financial control. The post-payment detailed payment advice with bill reference, TDS deduction, etc., intimated to respective vendor registered email, has improved payment transparency and reduced payment disputes.

The SAP integration has further improved business operations by enabling two-way communication of data using Rest API and custom API creation as per business requirements. The Auto generation of Business Partner (BP) after the Workflow Approval has reduced manual efforts and streamlined the onboarding process. The QR Code Based gate entry at security checkpoints (IBD), MIGO, and MIRO has reduced manual data entry and improved data accuracy. The bundled features, such as Inventory Check during PR and PO Creation and Approval, have improved inventory management and reduced errors during the procurement process. Overall, the implementation of the Self-Service portal for registered Vendors and SAP integration has improved business efficiency, transparency, and financial control, leading to better vendor relationships and increased profitability.