Tri-Pac Inc. is owned and operated by a team of pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare manufacturing & packaging leaders with over 51 years of contract development, filling and manufacturing for otc, medical devices & cosmetics for world-class brands. They are known for paying meticulous attention to the quality and safety of their products to ensure a healthier and happier populace.

They also give a lot of focus to R&D and always strive for continuous improvement in the quality of their products and services, using leading state-of-the-art technologies and processes to ensure that they stay at the top of their industry. Their corporate ethics include quality, sustainability, employee safety, innovation and community development.

Problems and Solutions with SAP Business One

As expected for such a large company with larger ambitions, Tri-Pac Inc. realised it needed a technology solution to streamline some areas of its operations in a robust, secure and transparent manner to allow it to truly expand its customer base and operations to the level it foresaw. They wanted a solution which would reduce management workloads and paperwork to allow management to focus instead on the core focus areas of innovation, expansion and quality control.

After some internal research, Tri-Pac Inc. approached Silver Touch Technologies to implement a software solution to the following identified problems:

Inventory Management

Challenges Faced:

As a manufacturing company with a large number of highly specialised products, Tri-Pac Inc. felt it needed some way to be able to easily track the number, location, status and destination of all the thousands of materials it worked with. This included such sundries as chemicals, raw materials, containers, machinery, spare parts and other specialised equipment. They needed to be able to easily track, plan and analyse the logistics, future requirements, bulk data, and other statistics of all these items, which took up an enormous amount of management’s time and energy.

Change Observed after Implementation of SAP Business One:

With SAP Business One, however, they discovered an easy and transparent way to easily look at every detail they needed about every single item in their roster, and this top-down view not only gave them clarity about the logistical situation but also the ability to easily analyse and plan for the future. With such detailed information, and the software handling all the grunt work automatically, they were able to spot areas of inefficiency, plan purchase orders in advance, and improve logistical operations. As a consequence, their profitability went shooting up.

Customer Relations

Challenges Faced:

With a stellar customer experience being one of the pillars of Tri-Pac Inc.’s corporate values and the need to handle relations with a large number of customers across an even larger number of products and services, Tri-Pac Inc. realised that without a robust IT partner, they would need an entire army of customer service representatives, which would have been a major drag on company finances and focus. They wanted to provide each customer with a personal and high-quality experience, from consultation and negotiation - all the way to after-sales support.

Outcome after SAP Business One Implementation:

This gap was once again filled by SAP Business One, whose customer relations management module gave Tri-Pac Inc's management the ability to easily check pending orders, follow up with customers on any enquiries, overview any special requirements from clients and so on and so forth. This allowed them to provide a superior customer experience and improve their rate of repeat customers while also acquiring new customers through positive word of mouth.

Opportunities Ahead of Tri-Pac

Finally, while this was not a problem per se, Tri-Pac Inc. is an ambitious company filled with ambitious personnel, and they had big dreams of seeing the company lead the medical equipment industry. In today’s hyper-competitive business environment, they needed every advantage they could get to realise their goal, and SAP Business One proved to be a workhorse in this department.

Through the ability to generate leads, follow up on them, eliminate inefficiency, ensure happy customers who would come back for more, as well as endorse their quality to new customers, track logistics easily to ensure timeliness, and several other such functions, SAP Business One has helped Tri-Pac Inc. set itself on the path to increased profitability and steady growth - all without compromising on their corporate ethics and values.

The Silver Touch Software Experience

What made the process of SAP Business One implementation painless and efficient for Tri-Pac was the experience and skill set of their technology partner, Silver Touch Technologies. Since Silver Touch already had a deep bench of experienced software engineers and consultants and several years of experience working with similar firms to iron out problems and implement productivity-enhancing software, they knew exactly how to handle Tri-Pac Inc’s problems and were able to hit the ground running.

The process started with a consultancy phase, where Tri-Pac and Silver Touch staff held interviews and meetings to pinpoint what exactly the main problem areas were, what the possible solutions to them were, and how to go about implementing them in a manner which would cause minimal disruption and maximal gains. Here, Silver Touch’s professionalism was already on display, as they not only quickly understood the issues and Tri-Pac Inc.’s precise requirements and the solutions needed to tackle the problems but also went above and beyond.

Silver Touch proactively suggested solutions and fixes that Tri-Pac had not even considered, solutions borne from Silver Touch’s many similar projects, and would help not just fix inefficiencies but also grow the business by providing new avenues for productivity growth.

The implementation then moved into Phase Two, where Silver Touch designed a custom architecture for SAP Business One tailor-made for Tri-Pac’s specific requirements and set about providing comprehensive training to all staff to help them use the software with zero growing pains, with a dedicated team based onsite to provide personal care and oversight.

However, Silver Touch’s involvement did not just end at mere software implementation. They believe in software as a service and provide truly stellar after-sales support to Tri-Pac. This included ongoing technical support, expansion of modules, refresher training courses, regular software updates to improve operation and security, and troubleshooting.

Tri-Pac Inc. stated that Silver Touch Technologies’ professionalism and experience helped them fully realise the productivity and efficiency gains derived from SAP Business One. What was supposed to be a majorly disruptive process of SAP Business One instead turned into a quick, smooth process with minimal downtime or delays, well within cost and time limits, and drastically improved Tri-Pac operations.