M icrosoft® bCentral M icrosoft® bCentral

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Agility with customers and suppliers
Documented: August 2002
Country: Mexico
“Technology generates business value by
simplifying and optimizing processes, which
in turn facilitates the decision makingprocess with reliable and timely
information.”
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Corporación Control was interested in improving its critical operations
and processes by simplifying the tasks in the company’s various
areas.
Its aim was to improve communication with suppliers, speed up the
exchange of information in both directions, and reduce the margin of
error in manual processes, which represented about 80% of day-today work.
Profile of Corporación Control
This commercial organization was established in 1963 with the opening of
“Del Centro,” the first convenience store in Tampico, Tamaulipas.
This store quickly consolidated itself, and within ten years, it began to expand
outside Tampico when it setup the first “Del Sol” store in Monterrey, Nuevo
Leon in 1972 in an area in which at that time there was very little business
activity; a fact which represented a challenge that was quickly overcome.
Today, it is considered one of Monterrey’s most important businesses–
pioneers and explorers–of commerce in this city’s downtown area.
The store’s penetration into the Monterrey market gave rise to the opening of
a chain of "Del Sol" stores in a number of cities throughout Mexico.
In 1990, the company introduced a new concept in boutiques called “Locura,”
which soon became very fashionable among young girls. Today there are
many of these stores throughout much of Mexico.
Corporación Control’s solidity in the Mexican market led to Woolworth
Mexicana (including its restaurants) becoming part of the group in 1997,
although it retained its name and identity.
This is the brief history of Corporación Control, the result of the trust placed
on its staff and on its day-to-day effort to win the confidence of its customers.
Juan Felix Rodriguez
Managing Director
Corporación Control S.A. de C.V.
Solution Overview
Corporación Control was seeking to
improve its internal processes,
adding value to its critical operations
and simplifying the tasks of its
various departments.
As a result, it wanted to improve
communication with its suppliers, by
speeding up the exchange of
information in both directions and
reducing the margin of error in its
manual processes, which used to
account for 80% of its day-to-day
operations before purchasing this
solution.
Corporación Control had its own
Website on which it mainly
published payment notifications
Microsoft Products Used:
Microsoft® bCentral and Microsoft®
bCentral Connector; analyzing the
implementation of BizTalk Server.
Benefits
Corporación Control has managed
to incorporate 95% of its business
partners (suppliers) into its Value
Chain Integration System, making it
the single point of contact for
exchanging documents, creating
and canceling orders, notification of
outstanding and due payments, and
general notifications, among others.
Corporación Control has also
managed to reduce the amount of
time that people spend on
controlling
the
printing
and
distribution of these documents of
key importance to the development
of the business.
Business Challenge
•
Corporación Control used to have an extranet that it used to integrate
operations with its supply chain; however, the network required much
management and maintenance, in addition to which not all buyers and/or
suppliers could use it.
•
The extranet that the company used as an electronic information exchange
tool was severely restricted as it could only send outstanding payment
notifications, the purpose of which were merely informative.
•
The company wanted to incorporate a greater number of documents that
originated from its various departments within purchase orders, and also to
be able to cancel these purchase orders, generate shipping statements,
return of goods notes, as well as other matters.
1
•
“Mayor investment and effort on the
part of the IT Department was
required to expand our website, and
this was difficult as they were very
busy implementing the new ERP at
that time. It is for this reason that we
believe that creating a platform to
integrate all communications with
our suppliers is just the first step in
setting up information exchange
projects with them.”
Marcial Martinez
Systems Manager
Corporación Control S.A. de C.V.
On the other hand, Corporación Control has three business systems that it
inherited from the companies that now make up the group, and this resulted
in a very complex management process.
Why did Corporación Control choose Microsoft?
Corporación Control went straight to Microsoft in search of a solution to its problems,
because it already had a close-working relationship with Microsoft for years.
For more information:
Microsoft’s offering comprised implementing bCentral as a flexible solution to integrate
and exchange information along the supply chain and also to automate criticalbusiness processes.
Marcial Martinez
Corporación Control
Systems Manager
01(81)8329-5581
mmartinez@ccontrol.com.mx
Corporación Control decided on the Microsoft bCentral proposal, as it would be a
profitable investment and because it would not require a large effort to develop the
data interfaces among the company’s systems, thus enabling the centralization of
information and the existence of one single point of contact and an open flow of data
among suppliers.
Microsoft implemented bCentral in Corporación Control by creating customized
interfaces for the company, and through the implementation of Microsoft® bCentral
Connector, it enabled documents to be exchanged with the value chain. The company
made few changes to its existing operating processes, sped up its day-to-day
operations with suppliers, making information available over the Internet and
automating its business generation and exchange processes.
Benefits of the Solution
One of the benefits that Corporación Control obtained by implementing the Microsoft®
bCentral solution as its internal network is that it can now communicate with its
suppliers in order to exchange documents, so that five documents may now be
handled simultaneously: purchase orders, outstanding payments, payments made,
cancellation of purchase orders, and informative bulletins (specific announcements to
suppliers).
The system also has the facility to increase the number of documents published and
sent to the company’s business partners, and system information is now available for
consultation by any user with Internet access.
Those suppliers of Corporación Control who are interested in becoming part of this
information network only need to contract the bCentral access service by paying a
fixed fee, regardless of the number of documents sent.
Corporación Control is currently working with around 1,045 suppliers out of a total of
1,100. The company estimates that within two years, all its suppliers will be part of the
bCentral network, so that they may electronically exchange critical business
information.
Fernando Zabal
Microsoft Mexico
Business Development Manager
(55)5267-2299
ferzab@microsoft.com
Press only:
Luis Eduardo Osorio Naser
Edelman Mexico