It is a given that large retailers use enterprise resource planning (ERP) sytems to manage stock movements, payments and debt collecting. These systems make sense because they make it possible to run the operational and financial side of a retail business more efficiently while providing the type of business intelligence management needs to make strategic decisions. ERP systems reduce operating costs and make it possible to lower consumer prices. All this comes at a price. The barrier to entry is the huge cost associated with running and implementing these types of ERP systems.

ERP systems typically need to be custom designed or at least adapted to suit the customer's environment. There are usually older in-use systems that need upgrading or migrating and data on a variety of databases that need to be either accessed or converted, making the development phase expensive. Then there are other costs such as license fees and maintenance.

With the market for large ERP systems reaching saturation, providers have been eyeing the smaller and medium market. Even SAP, the market share leader for large ERP systems, has been vocal in trying to address its reputation as a large system for large companies. However, the trick with this market is to reduce the cost barrier. Enter QBCon, a bespoke business solution developer. The company has been providing ERP systems with a particular retail slant since 1993.

QBCon's approach allows smaller retail chains to access the benefits of an ERP system without having to make a large company-size investment. Low over heads, modular implementation, software as a service and flexibility are all elements that allow QBCon to offer ERP systems as solutions to smaller retailers. However, not all QBCon's clients are small. Current retail customers include AFRGI who had a R5.4bn turnover in 2006.

For the diversified agricultural supplier QBCon changed the way AFGRI Farmcity managed its sales data through the enterprise resource planning system.

QBCon adapted the AFRGRI retail IT setup to negate the geographic challenges and service supply problems that some of its remote and newer outlets experienced. On one occasion it even allowed AFGRI to open its Ruimsig Farmcity without Telkom.

Apart from the functions normally associated with ERP systems, such as accounting, resource management, stock management, point of sale systems and maintenance scheduling, the QBCon system also offers EasyAsk, a business intelligence tool that allows user-specified reports accessed with standard English language requests. Other retailers running QBCon Enterprise system are Namibian general goods retailer Woermann & Brock and Barney's Paints. QBCon Enterprise increased the probability for uninterrupted trade when Woermann & Brock installed the system in its 25 retail outlets, ranging from family grocery outlets to supermarkets and massive wholesale trade shops. QBCon Enterprise now allows the tills to automatically begin queuing data instead of the data being updated to the central server in real-time in the event of a communication or hardware failure. The QBCon Enterprise system is a major contributor to the success of Woermann & Brock's diversification in the market due to the fact that it provides Woermann & Brock with the ability to make strategic decisions with its wide-ranging reporting capabilities

Paint manufacturer and retailer Barney's Paint first installed QBCon Enterprise implemented at the Morningside franchise in 2005. Barney's Paint required a system that could not only increase its turnover and profitability, but help the franchise order the correct products on time, receive stock at the correct cost, improve customer relationships and provide precise financial statistics to assist them in making the correct strategic decisions that will provide them with the opportunities to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Barney's Paint experienced the benefit of the system and has since contracted QBCon to install QBCon Enterprise at some of their other stores.

ERP systems are the smaller retailer's ticket to play in the big leagues and with clever implementation and pricing it need not be a dream.