Company Profile.

Abuzar Consultancy is a software development and Information Technology (IT) consulting organization at the leading edge of new thinking and innovative practice in the areas of Management Control Systems, Supply Chain Management and Financial Accounting.

Since the company’s founding in 1994, we have been committed to creating software and IT based solutions to business problems that help our clients to integrate different functional areas of their businesses, and to create more effective and profitable organizations.

From the very start we have chosen to focus on the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems that take the holistic view of a business organization and try to integrate different business functions by eliminating redundancy and duplicity of information. We have worked with companies in the manufacturing as well as trading sectors. Within the trading business arena we have worked for different segments over the last twenty years such as Departmental Stores, Pharmacy Shops, Auto Parts Dealers, Garments and Shoe Shops, Chemical Dealers, Gift Shops, Hardware and Electrical Components Dealers, and Books and Stationary Shops. Our clients include retailers, wholesalers, as well as distributors and chain stores. Many of our clients are industry leaders or among top five in Pakistan in their respective segments.

We have learned a lot during all these years about what our different segments of customers need, what they want, and what they are thrilled by. We are still fond of our original strategy of giving customers the software up front, and then providing for extra customization that we feel is required to capture the essence of their business model.

Now we are at a stage where we have been able to change the business methods of our clients. Some of them have started new businesses due to our enabling role and have ventured into retail chains. Some have even closed parts of businesses that we demonstrated to them to be under-performing by providing them a measurement mechanism.

At Abuzar Consultancy we believe in delivering superior value to our customers by providing quality products and services. We define Quality as “Conformance to Customer’s Requirements” and therefore always strive to make our customers truly happy. We remain committed to providing our customers with the impetus to grow, whilst continuing to make their complex Information Technology world as simple as possible.

Resources
The Abuzar Consultancy development team comprises of software engineers with masters degrees in computer science, and experience in Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, Visual FoxPro, and Java & Active Server Pages. Abuzar Consultancy has its offices in Lahore, and Islamabad/Rawalpindi. In addition to development staff we have dedicated staff for customer training and customer workflow consultation.

Abuzar Consultancy has development center with Windows 2000 and XP workstations. Windows NT and Novell servers provide support including source code development, quality assurance, and testing and project management.


WASILA
Supply Chain Management & Financial Accounting Software

WASILA is the flagship software product of Abuzar Consultancy. It is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software for manufacturing and trading enterprises built especially for the Pakistani business environment. WASILA in Urdu language means “The Enabler” which highlights the enabling role of Information Technology in providing competitive advantage to businesses.

An ERP takes an enterprise-wide holistic view of the business. It keeps all the data in a central shared storage space to provide accurate and timely information to all functional areas of business by avoiding redundancy and duplicity of information. Whenever any one department captures some information, it is instantly disseminated across whole of the value chain. For example, when a sales order is received from the customer, it is immediately verified against existing stock and the purchase department is instantly notified of any quantity that needs to be ordered from the supplier. An ERP, therefore, is complex and huge software that takes a long effort to develop. It also has to incorporate the best of available management practices in all functional areas that it wants to automate.

WASILA is an integrated with Purchasing, and Sales Inventory, Ledger, Financial Reporting, Accounts Payable / Receivable, / Distribution System comprising of following modules:

• Purchase Ordering , Purchasing
• Point of Sales System
• Sales & Distribution System of Item in various Departments
• Stock taking and Auditing Mechanism
• Inventory Management including support for Multiple Godowns
• General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable
• Financial Reporting
• Management Information System Reporting
• Security & Access Restriction System

The system is capable of running in networked environment where multiple users handle business functions simultaneously. Our system is being used at more than 600 locations across Pakistan. At some of these locations it remains in operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

WASILA comprises of modules that correspond to the functional areas of business. Following is a brief description of modules:

1) Purchasing and Purchase Ordering System:

The software keeps track of the all items’ stock in hand. It has the facility of setting up Reorder and Optimum levels for each item. It compares existing stock with these levels and prompts for items that need to be ordered from suppliers. By using this feature sudden stock outs can be avoided. During Purchase it helps in comparing the price with the previously offered price of this item in order to check the prices given by different suppliers. It also helps in generating purchase orders for suppliers. It has the ability to set reorder and optimum level check-points for all items and automatically points out the needed item based whenever their stock gets decreased from the reorder level. It can also order items based upon the forecast of future sales/consumption based upon the previous usage pattern of the item.


2) Sales & Distribution System

The software has the facility of making Sales as well as Issues (to different departments of a manufacturing organization). After issuing items it decreases the stock so that the stock in hand quantity is updated online and remains correct up-to the last second. The sales module has the ability to handle the sales tax department requirements regarding the sales tax percentage and invoice format.

3) Stock taking and Auditing Mechanism

The software has a comprehensive stock-taking and auditing mechanism, whereby items are physically counted and compared with computer generated reports to check the validity of stock. It keeps track of all transactions and can prepare stock register of every single item in inventory giving detail about all receipts or issues in which this item was handled in inventory.

4) Inventory Management

The software helps in inventory management by keeping track of the stock of all items in the inventory. It can forecast the future stock requirements of an item based on its past usage history.

5) Management Information System Reporting
The software provides comprehensive Management Information System reporting to help in making decisions about inventory such as fast and slow moving items, dead stock, comparative purchase prices offered by suppliers etc..

6) Security & Access Restriction System

The software has a Security and Access Restriction System by which the access to different types of information can be controlled. Users are defined with each one having its own password. Every user belongs to a Group and rights and privileges are defined at the group level. The software also tags each transaction with the corresponding user’s name to keep track of all transactions in the inventory. This promotes a culture of accountability in the organization.

Following are the chief benefits that a trading or manufacturing business can get by implementing the software:

Working Capital Management: The software can print a report that analyzes the sales and returns of all the items during the base period. Based on this information the software can calculate daily average quantity that needs to be present for sales. This quantity would then be used for forecasting the stock requirements for the projection period. Using these features, the management can reduce inventory while maintaining the same sales / consumption turnover. The monetary amount of this benefit can be huge for trading businesses and for manufacturing businesses with a fast moving raw materials inventory.

Imposition of Structure on Business: With the help of software the management can control the working of business because at the end of the day it can audit all that had happened during the day. The staff has to follow the structure and discipline imposed by the software even when the management is not supervising them directly.

Increased Productivity: Software reduces significantly the time of executing a business function such as accepting a customer order, or making an invoice, or monitoring accounts receivables. Abuzar Consultancy’s staff works with clients to re-design their workflows to take leverage of information technology tools and practices. Software can instantly provide a lot of management information that helps in making business decisions. For example, during sales the software can tell each item’s current stock, current average cost, most recent purchase price, customer’s previous balance and credit limit, and the sale price offered to this particular customer last time.

Accounts Management: Software has integrated accounting features and automatically updates suppliers’ or customers’ ledger during purchases or sales. By following its workflow it can be guaranteed that suppliers are only paid their bills once the quantity received from them has been accurately entered into the computer. Similarly it can keep track of the credit sales invoices generated against all customers.



Development Methodology and Implementation Plan
Abuzar Consultancy employs an iterative software development model in which software capability is enhanced in increments. As the software is being developed and upgraded for last ten years, and it is being used at more than two hundred locations, it has a rich feature set that can immediately address the standard requirements related to Purchases, Sales, Inventory Management and Financial Accounting.

Users start using the software the same day it is delivered. An implementation consultant from AC helps them in understanding software features and relating it to their specific business environment. Many a times they change their old way of doing things and adopt software dictated workflow. At some points software also needs to be modified to accommodate their peculiar business problems. Such modifications are an integral part of the implementation process but they are done after the users start using the software in their daily operations. This is because by doing so the requirements pointed out by users become very clear as they have had the experience of using live software in their business operations. Now they are in a much better position to explain feature deficiencies and difficulties in software interface such as the screens and report formats.

A typical implementation usually takes the following pattern:

Week 1:

In the first week the basic data related to items, customers, suppliers and chart of
Accounts are fed into the software. During this week the users are given training in basic software interface screen and report formats. Individual login accounts of users are created and the security and access restriction system of software is put into place, so that everyone gets information on a need to know basis. For client whose data is already present in electronic form and can be ported to WASILA, many steps of week 2 are started in week 1.

Week 2:

At the start of 2nd week a stock taking exercise is undertaken and opening stocks of all items are entered into the software. Now software can show the existing stock and can print stock reports. From now on all incoming and outgoing transactions need to be fed into the software to keep the stock quantities up do date. During the week users are given hands on training in using sales and purchase module. Some customization is also done to accommodate user requirements regarding invoice print out formats.




Week 3:

At the start of 3rd week suppliers and customer opening balances are fed into the software and from now on all accounting transactions are fed into the software. If the number of customers is small then the accounting for customers can also be started in 2nd week. During this users also give their feedback regarding shortcomings and difficulties in Sales and Purchases which are customized for them.

Week4
In the 4th week advanced features of software such as customized vouchers, quotations, sales orders and purchase orders are implemented. The features demanded by users in previous weeks are delivered and new requirements are also gathered. This process now will continue although the amount of customization required by users drops significantly.