Oracle Customer Success—SMSA Express Transportation Company Ltd.

SMSA Express Transportation Company Frees up Capital Invested in Inventory by 20%, Reduces Days Sales Outstanding, Shortens Period Close

SMSA Express is dedicated to meeting dynamic, nonstop market needs with a high level of customer satisfaction, and this can only be achieved with innovation, passion for results, and state-of art technology.

— Eng. Majed Alesmail, Deputy Managing Director, SMSA Express Transportation Company Ltd.

SMSA Express is a leading express transportation and logistics service provider in Saudi Arabia with more than 20 years of service, an ISO 9001:2008 (quality management system), ISO 14001:2004 (environmental management system), OHSAS (international occupational health and safety management system) and first TISSE (International Standard for Service Excellence)-certified company in Saudi Arabia. It maintains a fleet of more than 1,500 vehicles covering a broad territory that includes 325 cities, villages, and towns in the kingdom. SMSA Express is dedicated to providing time-sensitive, highly personalized delivery services with the help of more than 212 retail centers, kingdomwide. Its trained staff of more than 2,700 works from five major distribution hubs, 25 stations, and eight gateways.

Business Challenge

Collect revenues faster, shorten period-close times, and cut financial administration for a business that experiences double-digit revenue growth each year for its courier, freight forwarding, and third-party logistics services
Reduce capital tied up in stocking SMSA Express with cartons, boxes, envelopes, and tubes at five major distribution hubs and 25 satellite stations

Improve the range of human resources (HR) services to more than 2,700 office, station, and field-based staff and enable HR professionals to focus on planning future staffing needs
Meet corporate environmental objectives by avoiding unnecessary paper use and by purchasing recyclable office supplies and consumables
Maximize lifetime value to SMSA for its more than 10,000 active customers, who include 90% of Saudi Arabia’s banks, Saudi Post, and leading manufacturing and trading companies
Encourage inactive customers to reactivate their relationship with SMSA, win new bids, and optimize new business opportunities

Cut stock of SMSA packing materials by 20%, using Oracle Inventory Management to track stock levels and ensure just-in-time ordering to replenish hubs and warehouses
Reduced capital tied up in stock by 20% and freed up space in distribution centers to handle revenue-generating freight while ensuring packaging stocks meets demand

Cut days sales outstanding by three days using Oracle Purchasing and Oracle Financials to build aligned, integrated, procure-to-pay processes that ensure customers are invoiced faster and to provide collection teams with timely insight into overdue accounts
Reduced monthly, quarterly, and annual close times by an average of five days, using Oracle Financials to centralize payables, receivables, and general-ledger data across the organization for rapid consolidation and reporting
Saved each employee two hours per month by using Oracle Self-Service Human Resources to allow staff to request leave, amend personal details, apply for references from managers when moving to another position in SMSA Express, and to check job vacancies online
Freed HR professionals from spending most of their time processing paper-based leave requests and handling routine HR tasks, such as sick leave and other forms of absence management
Used Oracle Payroll’s rules-based pay and compensation management to automate the timely payment of all employees and generate online, paperless pay slips
Benefited from staff management and skills-analysis tools in Oracle Human Resources that allow HR professionals to identify potential future senior managers and ensure training is in place to develop employees with the skills to fill positions critical to the business
Reduced paper and stationery consumption by 15% by web-enabling HR processes and providing electronic pay slips, which cut costs and help to meet SMSA’s green goals
Used Oracle Purchasing to maximize buying power by identifying and using best-value suppliers for office and depot equipment, vehicles, fuel, and services, such as cleaning, maintenance, and repair services
Improved employee productivity and cut process cycles by replacing outdated, manual, legacy financial, inventory, and HR tools with end-to-end, automated workflows
Enhanced customer service by enabling finance teams to gain a real-time view of the status for any invoice, credit note, or outstanding payment and to advise the client instantly
Replaced multiple disparate customer records with Oracle’s Siebel Sales and gained a single web-enabled database for all customers and interactions across all touch points
Benefited from Siebel Sales to share client and sales-lead data across teams in all parts of the kingdom to improve pipeline visibility and increase sales effectiveness
Used Siebel Sales to bid successfully for new transportation projects with Saudi companies
Began implementing Oracle Business Intelligence to enable decision-makers to compare the profitability of SMSA’s courier, shipping, freight-forwarding, and express mail offerings in all parts of the kingdom
Implemented Oracle Financial Analytics, Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics, and Oracle Human Resources Analytics to gain timely analyses of revenue, profit margins, and spending for goods, services, and staff and to identify opportunities for correcting efficiencies

Why They Chose Oracle

SMSA Express Transportation also evaluated SAP’s enterprise resource planning solution but selected Oracle for its market leadership in the Middle East, its extensive partner network in Saudi Arabia, and strong references from other customers in the region. SMSA could meet most of its needs using out-of-the-box Oracle applications, which simplified deployment and support. The standards-based solutions integrated with SMSA’s third-party, order-capture application and enabled the company to create automated process flows, from placing orders, through to dispatch and customer invoicing.

Oracle and Siebel were highly recommended to us by other leading Saudi companies, and they offered the broadest range of functionality available.

— Mohammed Burhan Khan, Director, Finance, SMSA Express Transportation Company Ltd.

Execution

Oracle Platinum Partner HCL Technologies project-managed the implementation and delivered an on-time, on-budget go-live. A team from the Oracle Collaborative Engagement Program liaised with both SMSA and HCL Technologies to review the project at every stage and ensure a best-practice implementation that met the company’s objectives.

"Oracle Collaborative Engagement Program and HCL Technologies worked together to ensure a smooth implementation and go-live." Irshad M. Baig, National Manager - IT, SMSA Express Transportation Company Ltd.

SMSA is planning to implement Oracle’s Siebel Marketing and Siebel Loyalty to run promotional campaigns and to incentivize existing and new customers with points for each shipment that they can redeem towards discounted rates for all SMSA Express services.

About SMSA Express Transportation Company Ltd.

Headquarters

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Employees

2,700

SMSA Express Transportation Company Ltd.

Partners

SMSA chose HCL Technologies for its extensive expertise and successful track record of Oracle implementations in the Middle East and its ability to configure out-of-the-box applications to its specific needs.

"HCL Technologies understands both the transportation business and the challenges of our region, and it helps us to maximize the value of our technology investment." Kashan Khalid, IT Projects Team Leader, SMSA Express Transportation Company Ltd.