Marubeni is a global trading company with turnover in excess of $30 billion USD annually. With a global network of almost 200 representative offices and more than 600 affiliated companies in 84 countries, Marubeni is involved in a wide variety of activities. The Construction Equipment department, a division of Marubeni’s Transportation division, owns nine construction and mining distributors operating on 4 continents. 

Challenges
Marubeni’s heavy equipment dealerships were operating using outdated software, not specific to their industry. It did not enable Marubeni to optimize their business operations at either the regional or the corporate level. The company’s Global Optimization Business Planning Team recognized the need for advanced software that would support standardizing their dealer business processes.

Solution
Andy Chapman, Marubeni’s Manager of Global Operations commented, “After conducting a thorough 14 month search comparing the best global enterprise software providers in the heavy equipment and rental dealer market, Marubeni determined that e-Emphasys Technologies’ eXtend product is the clear market leader in business system functionality, business intelligence and analytics, and flexibility to adapt to business changes. eXtend’s unique capabilities enable Marubeni to rapidly implement best business practices and standardize our equipment distribution operations globally."

"Probably what closed the door on the competition during the decision making process was e-Emphasys’ knowledge of the construction equipment dealership industry. Of course, e-Emphasys had explained to us how eXtend was focused on our industry, but we were skeptical. During a 2 day demo at our dealer in Mexico, we brought in our functional teams from Sales, Parts, Service, Finance, Accounting, etc. to challenge the e-Emphasys team with the things we need to do on a daily basis and the problems we face. No matter how detailed or industry specific the questions/examples from our people were, the e-Emphasys team fielded every one of them in stride with an obvious knowledge of, and experience in, our industry. Frankly, I wish I had videotaped that session because in the end it turned out to be a 2-day seminar on best practices for running a construction equipment dealership!"

"By utilizing the Process Modeller, eXtend will not only help us to standardize the way we measure and report, but also the way we do business across the globe. Not only that, but we also realized that the Process Modeller will shorten the time it takes to train new employees as we grow our business.

eXtend Advanced Parts Planning was another feature that put eXtend head-and-shoulders above the competition. The capability to not only increase stocking levels based on hits and lost sales, but to also decrease them when the time comes to start phasing a part out is huge for us. Obsolescence has been a drag on our profitability and eXtend will help us minimize that effect.

eXtend BI (Business Intelligence and Reporting) was another key for us. As a publicly traded company with offices in over 70 countries, the amount of reporting we require from our subsidiaries can be overwhelming for them at times. The BI allows us to design automatic generation of the reports we need not only within each individual dealer itself, but at a corporate level as well. We expect this will save our regional staff days each month simply in time they typically spend creating reports for the head office.

One final feature that we are excited about is the SmartCall functionality. We want to provide all of our customers with the best possible experience whenever they contact any one of our dealers. With customer specific information popping onto our employees’ monitors when they receive a call from that customer, we expect to be able to serve our customers far more efficiently and intelligently, adding a personal touch to the business call."

Results and Benefits
"Our Makomex experience proved that the combination of eXtend’s pre-defined industry best practices and e-Emphasys’ project management expertise resulted in an extremely effective implementation. e-Emphasys’ deep knowledge of the equipment dealership industry was another significant factor contributing to the project’s success.” said Andy Chapman. “Together, the Marubeni and e-Emphasys team members delivered a solution that will help support our business now and well into the foreseeable future.”

“Great drill-down reports and management dashboards provide real-time monitoring of company financials and reports in multi-currency. All are great benefits that eXtend brings to our operations and now we can close the month on the same day as month-end,” said Makomex COO Eduardo Elizondo. “Real-time business visibility across all of our branch operations is vital. The e-Emphasys eXtend software has provided financial consolidation and insights into our costs and profitability across Mexico that we can use to improve our bottom line.”

“We’re thrilled with the success in Mexico, and now we’re focusing on implementation of eXtend in other countries, starting with our Russian operations.” said Marubeni’s Chapman. “It’s obvious we made the right choice in selecting e-Emphasys and eXtend.”

Press Release:
"Marubeni Goes Live with e- Emphasys eXtend Software To Improve Equipment Sales, Service and Rental Operations."