QIMA

Leader in compliance and quality control services

QIMA: THE CHALLENGE OF THINKING GLOBALLY AND IMPLEMENTING LOCALLY

QIMA is a global quality control and compliance services provider that protects, manages and optimizes the supply chain of an extensive client portfolio in more than 120 countries.

Founded in 1995 as AsiaInspection, this firm conducts audit programs, product inspections and laboratory tests for retailers, importers and all types of marketers worldwide.

With the vision of simplifying, facilitating, streamlining and reducing costs of its clients operations, QIMA has undergone an accelerated expansion that has led it to now have 30 offices, more than 3,000 employees of 60 different nationalities and the possibility to operate in more than 85 countries.

Facing this situation of high demand and accelerated growth, QIMA required a technological response for these two general challenges: 1) adopt a fully aligned solution with the nature and philosophy of the business and 2) unify the way multiple subsidiaries around the world operate.

Exploring its alternatives, Oracle NetSuite emerged as a natural candidate for its ability to streamline the operations of a large-scale business with a system capable of integrating information in a single database, which can be consulted at any time and any place.

QIMA opted for the internationally Oracle NetSuite as a unifying core of all its subsidiaries, that have already begun with their respective implementation processes. Such was the case of QIMA Mexico, who successfully installed the tool in 2020 with Efficientix, now Tekiio.

Specific Challenge

As Arturo Espinosa, QIMA's Finance Director in Latin America explains, the company was looking for a business solution that would provide flexibility in processes and information shipments, solutions to local and corporate needs, and a reduction in delivery times for its services.

QIMA as a global company has defined as its first value "passion for the customer" which entails that all subsidiaries and collaborators should try to focus their efforts and seek to have the necessary tools to achieve it, in the different latitudes in which they are present.

While the information in the local parts was located in cubes and flat files, a fine analysis was hard to get. This is why, as part of an overarching whole, they needed to build firmer pillars to support a similar service delivery in quantity and quality for the different latitudes in which they have presence.

Response Capacity in both space and time

One of the sensitive aspects to improve is the certainty in the service, no matter the time or the current location of the clients.

Without a system support that optimizes information processes in the cloud, reporting on inspections and prior reviews might take weeks, which affects our performance in any industry we serve, whom demand immediate response regardless the seasonality.

One of the tools that QIMA has is its QIMA Customer (SSO) platform, with which the company reduces the time to send reports and reports by up to 24 hours regardless of the location, so that the customer can make the best operations and business decisions based on this accurate and real-time information.

Accordingly, supported by Oracle NetSuite For Financial Management, QIMA now manages to synchronize the company in a global system that allows to significantly reduce their delivery times of key services. This way, some processes that previously used to take days, today they only take a few hours.

Financial Optimization

An efficiency management system like NetSuite is reflected in different financial stages of the organization.

On the one hand, it reduces inspection times and consequently the billing in any geography, benefiting liquidity and an efficient working capital cycle.

On the other hand, in terms of profitability, derived from the adoption of the Oracle suite in Qima Mexico, the company has contributed to maintaining an EBITDA during this year, despite the pandemic.

The above confirms the fact that, with the efficient information and in timely manner, the tool has a greater capacity for analysis, therefore, QIMA Mexico obtains greater control over operating costs, such as the assignment of inspectors and their relative costs.

Empower the user with an effective system

An efficiency management system like NETSUITE is reflected in different financial stages of the organization.

On the one hand, it reduces inspection times and consequently the billing in any geography, benefiting liquidity and an efficient working capital cycle.

Tekiio: much more than a supplier

Given the high expectations of QIMA Mexico about those who use the tool, it is also a challenge for those who implement it. And for such a challenge, the concept of "supplier" was not enough.

“A supplier is limited. In business, I seek to have business partners: someone who listens, understands and commits; someone that contributes to develop the opportunity areas; a project like this is never perfect. A business partner must understand QIMA at a local level, and also internationally ”, confesses the Latin America CFO.

In Tekiio, QIMA Mexico found the perfect alliance to adapt Oracle NetSuite to its local and global needs, in a very enriching process for its business strategy and operation.

In fact, according to the manager, Tekiio was the only implementer in Latin America that transcended its borders (Mexico) and has collaborated in the installation of the platform in subsidiaries such as Chile and in the nearly future the USA, UK, and Holland.

“Tekiio has been a real business partner, an unconditional ally in this change process; regularly the resistance to change, the unexpected events in a project development, as well as the direction and scope changes, are unavoidable situations. Without the support, empathy and synergy that Tekiio has shown, it would have been very difficult to carry out this project”, Espinosa concluded.

In conclusion, QIMA México and Tekiio, took on the challenge of thinking globally and acting locally —an implementation that reconciled the corporate's general ambitions with the particularities of the region.

In such a challenge, Oracle NetSuite has proven to be a useful, flexible and a transparent tool that has helped the company to optimize its processes, reduce times, lower costs and, above all, offer a world-class service to its clients.

To make a project successful, you must gather the necessary resources and the leaders capable of guiding it. NetSuite is undoubtedly one of these essential resources, because, more than an ERP, it is a tool that understands your needs, helps you manage and synchronize business information in a flexible and friendly way, always with the ability to evolve along with your business.

To make a project successful, you must bring together the leaders capable of captaining it and the necessary resources. NetSuite is undoubtedly one of these essential resources, because, more than an ERP, it is a tool that understands your needs, helps you manage and synchronize business information in a flexible and friendly way, always with the ability to evolve along with your business.