Sweden’s Monitor ERP System a proven key enabler for Southeast Asian manufacturers

If there’s one incontestable truth today in the global manufacturing ecosystem, is that it looks nothing like that of the past.

It wasn’t long ago when manufacturers planned their production on assumptions supported by information originating from a linear supply chain. Product variables were limited, life cycles were long, and customer demand forecast variability was limited. Maintaining a profitable rate of materials flow from suppliers, through plants, through distribution channels to customers, and in turn understanding what is planned and required, what is happening, what has happened, and what should happen next was, for the most part, straight forward.

Today manufacturing companies must pursue their profitability through a highly volatile supply chain ecosystem, with ever shortening customer lead-time tolerance, dramatically shortened product life cycles, and a global network of supply partners and their associated lead-times. To use the word complex certainly isn’t a dramatification of the challenges facing manufacturers today.

In order to compete, manufacturers must operate from a system that provides them with accurate & timely information so that they know what needs to be stocked and where, what needs to be ordered or manufactured and when, and with all this will they meet their customers’ expected delivery time? The system which provides this information needs to be adaptive and flexible enough to help them keep pace with the ever changing business landscape in which they compete today.

The MONITOR ERP System has now been providing and adapting their highly flexible production management system value proposition to the world now for over 35 years, and is now realizing a growing demand for their services all over Asia.

Most of us are familiar with the old story of China acting as the world’s’ low cost manufacturing center, and for many years now many Swedish manufacturers have been moving their production bases over the China to take advantage of cost savings. Monitor ERP System has been right there supporting many of our Swedish customers through their relocation efforts and as a result Monitor has over 60 Swedish customers using our system to manage operations in their China locations. Some would also say that the party is over in China as inflationary pressures push the costs of operating in China to a level that forces the ‘Low Cost Manufacturing’ moniker to other regions of Asia, specifically South East Asia.

Five years ago, while completing a project in Singapore for one of Monitors’ Swedish customers manufacturing solar panels, Daniel Häggmark, Monitor ERP System Asias’ now acting Managing Director was introduced to an opportunity in Penang, Malaysia. Daniel decided to pursue the opportunity. After successfully winning the opportunity and completing the implementation, Daniel and Monitor HQ realized that the market opportunity for the Monitor ERP System in South East Asia was quite sizable.

“If we consider the region’s top countries of Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, and Singapore (by order of population size) we come to a population of over 630 million. Industrial data tells us that the manufacturing sectors of each of these countries consists of 80-90% small & medium sized manufacturing businesses across diverse industry verticals, serving a wide range of both domestic and global customers. This is the segment we are focusing on so the market size is more or less infinitive”.

Upon realizing this opportunity, Monitor slowly started to scale the business model in order to manage sales, implementations, and after sales support. Up until 2017, the growth of the team was moderate, scaling from about 2 to 10 employees between 2013 & 2017 and now in 2018 to 27 employees.

“Our new staff size reflects what we believe will be required to support our growth objectives and customer service KPIs in the Asian region. As part of the expansion, two senior team members from Monitor HQ Sweden have joined this year. Marita Larsson – Project Management Director, and Anders Ryberg – Consultant Director who combined bring over 50 years of implementation and business operations experience to our team. Over Monitors’ 35 years of servicing global manufacturing customers with it’s production management solution, we have gained tremendous insight into global operational best practices. It’s this valuable experience we wish to share with our prospective customer base here in Asia. So team members like Martia and Anders will help ensure the Monitor brand reputation remains healthy in its’ growth”.

“In addition to Marita and Anders joining the team, we have the pleasure of announcing the addition of new admin, support, and consulting staff joining us as well. These new members bring a vast variety of manufacturing related skills and experience to our team. We believe for them to choose to join the Monitor team speaks volumes to what the real opportunity is in this market for Monitor ERP System Asia. Some of the team members joins us from some of our largest competitors, as well as from some of our largest customers”.

For more info and contact details please visit our website at www.monitorerp.asia

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