Al Ghurair deploys Oracle E-Business Suite

The Al Ghurair Group has deployed the Oracle E-Business Suite to streamline business processes across its diverse real estate and manufacturing holdings.

Al Ghurair's 1,000-employee-strong organisation will use Oracle Financials (including Oracle Property Manager), Oracle Asset Management and Oracle Supply Chain Management to integrate and consolidate its operations, while reducing administrative costs.

As part of its e-business project, the Al Ghurair Group aims to improve financial reporting and analysis across its real estate division, which includes BurJuman and Al Reef Shopping Malls, as well as the commercial and residential properties within the Dh1.4 billion BurJuman extension, by automating lease execution and enabling wireless access to its property management applications.

The group's manufacturing interests, such as Gulf Extrusions, and its plastics and paper packaging plants, will utilise the Oracle solutions to lower costs through reduced inventory, and speed "time-to-market" for its cardboard, polyfilm, and aluminium container products.

"From a business perspective, Al Ghurair Group's new initiative is focused on streamlining our business processes, getting a more up-to-the-minute view of the entire company's financials, and integrating our data for a leaner, more agile organisation.

"The comprehensive nature of the Oracle E-Business Suite means that all of our different holdings can benefit from the new technology implementation, and information becomes more manageable across the entire Group," commented Hatem Al Sibai, group IT manager, Al Ghurair Group.

"From a technology standpoint, we required a robust architecture that could be accessed by a browser or handheld device for greater information availability, and Oracle is providing that level of 'anywhere, anytime' accessibility.

"Al Ghurair's new infrastructure is enabling us to both lower costs and increase our competitive advantage in the markets we serve."

The new Oracle implementation enables the group to better manage the routine and ad-hoc maintenance for the upkeep of its facilities, buildings, plants, and manufacturing operations.

At the same time, the group's real estate and manufacturing businesses can optimise physical space utilisation and reduce the overall complexity of their business processes by integrating them on a single system.

The Al Ghurair's e-business implementation is jointly managed by the Group's internal consulting team and Ernst & Young.