Yong Shen Food Industries Pte Ltd
Transforming a traditional Chinese business with the use of IT.
Company Background
Yong Shen Food Industries Pte Ltd is in the food production, packaging and distribution business. The company is known for its canned abalone marketed under its registered ‘Family Fortune’ brand name. Other products marketed under the same brand name include canned sea asparagus, packet mushroom, black moss, bottled oyster source and pepper powder.
In the early years, Yong Shen’s products were sold mainly to the mini-marts and provision shops. Since then the company has been selling to Chinese restaurants, gift and hamper companies and exporters.
Business Challenge
For many years, Yong Shen has been operating under the name, Yong Shen Foodstuffs Trading Company, as a traditional Chinese business located in a roll of inconspicuous shop houses along Guillemard road. Most of its products were manually packaged while others were outsourced to its vendors and packaging companies.
The company’s founder, Mr. Teo Yong Huat has plans to grow his business and part of his plan is to change the company’s image. He has came up with action plans such as changing the company’s name and logo, setting up a company website and is even looking at the possibility of moving into a new premise equipped with automated production and packaging facilities.
Prior to implementing the e-Solution Business suite, Yong Shen had a DOS-based proprietary system. One main constraint of the old system was the absence of accurate reports on inventory status and sales performance. As a result, the system merely functioned as an invoice-printing machine.
Teo then put up a request to the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore to invite proposals from software vendors. He sees the implementation of a new system as necessary step to change the company’s image apart from changing the company’s name and logo.
Evaluation and Implementation
Teo evaluated more than 20 vendors for a new computer system. After three-months of evaluation, he selected the e-Solution Business Suite developed by Silk Technologies, with accounting and distribution modules to cater to his requirements.
As Yong Shen deals with traditional Chinese food products, the software’s ability to support both English and Chinese languages is an important selection criteria for Teo who is a Chinese-educated businessman. The e-Solution Business Suite comes with a unique Bi-lingual Language Toggle capability to switch between English and Chinese on-screen display at the click of a button. This feature enables the staff and management of Yong Shen to choose the language they are comfortable to work with on a single set of data.
The support for multiple units of measure in the e-Solution Business Suite is also another important criteria for Yong Shen as this is part and parcel of the food industry. With this feature, Yong Shen is able to pack and sell products in different packaging. For example, canned abalone can be sold in single cans as well as cartons of 24 cans. Pepper products are purchased in bulk, measured in kilograms and re-packed and sold in bottles and 75-gram packs. The software handles automatic conversion of the different buying and selling measures as well as calculates the appropriate cost of sales. With the new system, Yong Shen can switch between the various units of measurements during purchasing and selling.
Yong Shen's abalone products
Complementing the Multiple Buying & Selling Measures function, e-Solution Distribution’s Price-Management function provides Yong Shen with a lot of flexibility in setting multiple selling prices for different units of measurement offered to different groups of customers. Users need not remember the price they have sold a product to a particular customer previously as the system fetches the selling price based on each customer’s price list.
Yong Shen’s canned abalone and dried mushroom products are highly in demand during the Chinese New Year festive season. During this period, Yong Shen markets its ‘Family Fortune’ hampers by packaging different products together. e-Solution’s kitting feature enables Yong Shen to manage its hampers business with flexibility in defining and changing hamper components. Being integrated to the inventory module, the system automatically deducts the components and calculates the cost of the hamper sold. It also comes with a query that shows the number of hampers they can make with the existing stock on hand.
e-Solution Business Suite’s multiple customer address feature is also useful to Yong Shen who sells its products to restaurants and supermarket chains. With this feature, Yong Shen is able to store the addresses of every outlet in the customer master. It provides Yong Shen with the ability to bill the customer and yet deliver goods to different outlets.
Conclusion
Through the implementation of the e-Solution Business Suite, Yong Shen was able to polish up its image as it has enabled the company to provide customer with better service and less delivery error. In addition, it has enabled Yong Shen to better manage it operations using features that address its business needs. The system has also helped Yong Shen to clean up inaccuracies inherent in its previous system, especially in inventory management. Overall, it has prepared the company for its future growth.
For more information on Yongshen Food Industries Pte Ltd, please visit www.yongshen.com
Yong Shen Foodstuff Pte Ltd
375 Guillemard Road
Singapore 399781
Tel: (65) 744 2284
Fax: (65) 745 6980
Overview
Company:
Yong Shen Food Industries Pte Ltd
Industry:
Food Industry
Business Activities:
Distribute traditional foodstuffs such as canned abalone and other
packet food products.
Business Challenge:
1. Inaccuracies caused by previous system.
2. Enhance company image with more efficient processes.
3. Bilingual language support.
Solutions Implemented:
Financial Management
Distribution Management
Program Used:
e-Solution Accounting
e-Solution Distribution