ALKHOBAR, 1 March 2005 — More and more Saudi firms are choosing to implement ERP solutions. The latest of the mid-side companies to take the ERP plunge is Fawaz Al-Hokair Group. While the firm has been using an in-house ERP solution developed with an international company for their retail business division, they decided to go a different route when looking for an ERP solution for their real estate business division.

“Fawaz Al-Hokair Group has grown enormously over the past 15 years,” said Tariq A. Khan, chief financial officer, Fawaz Al-Hokair Group. “Starting in retail, we now have three distinct business divisions. In our retail division we are by far the market leaders in Saudi Arabia and maybe the rest of the Gulf, with such brands as Zara, Monsoon, Nine West and many others. As part of the diversification program the company has branched off into real estate. We now own and manage seven shopping malls. Plus we have a major construction division that is building a number of other malls one of which is Dhahran Shopping City which will open on March 21. The third line of business is food retailing. We launched the first Geant Store, the first foreign hypermarket in the Kingdom and there is another one coming up here in the Eastern Province.”

Khan continued, “As far as track record goes Fawaz Al-Hokair Group has probably been one of the fastest growing groups in the Kingdom over the past 15 years. In the past five years our retail business has shown compounded growth of about 62 percent and going forward we look forward to compounded growth of about 25 percent over the next five years. The other two businesses, the real estate and hypermarket, are obviously getting more attention right now because they are new businesses and we hope to see more than 50 percent growth in both of those over the next five years.”

With all this activity and expansion, the group felt the need to implement modern IT management solutions throughout the organization.

“We wanted to bring certain professional elements into our management and at the same time focus on individual businesses as separate business entities,” Khan explained. “As such we needed to put in the best ERP package. Each division is large enough to justify the ERP package that best meets their needs. For our real estate division we did a complete market analysis of what was available in terms of real estate solutions and ERP. We came to the decision after comparing several products, that from a real estate management point of view JD Edwards EnterpriseOne was the best solution available. We looked at both international and locally developed products but in the final analysis we believed JD Edwards EnterpriseOne was the best choice.”

Al-Falak will be implementing JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 for Arabian Centres and Haifa Al-Jazira as a pilot project for Fawaz Al-Hokair Group. A phased implementation approach will be followed. The project consists of three phases, listed with respect to the modules. Phase I will focus on Financial & Distribution and will include General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Fixed Assets, Inventory Management, Procurement Management and Sales Order Management. Phase II will focus on Real Estate Management and Phase III will be Project Management including Job Costing, Contract Billing and Change Order.

According to Khan, a major reason for the selection of JD Edwards was its key module targeting real estate. The selection team also found JD Edwards to be very user-friendly. It took Al-Hokair’s team nearly six months to shop around for the right ERP solution. The implementation will take six months for the basic financial modules and then a further three months to get the construction and property modules linked in. This time frame includes training.

“JD Edwards EnterpriseOne was not only user-friendly and cost effective but it was also good from the operations perspective as well as from the financial perspective,” remarked Nadeem A. Khan, finance manager, Arabian Centres, Al-Hokair Group. “The property management team is not necessarily well versed in computer systems. However, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is very intuitive, so we believe they will find the training straightforward and they will embrace use of the application.”