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The company’s business growing ever fast started with only 5 employees until today TrickleStar operates on a global basis supplying affordable, simple and easy-to-use energy-saving products to reduce energy wastage incurred by electrical appliances in standby mode. TrickleStar’s development required years of dedicated effort that successfully listed them on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) in 2019.

TrickleStar has seen significant improvements in operational efficiency just in six months after going live. SAP Business One gives the company a greater ability to grow and to be qualified for an IPO with its proven profitability potential and transparency. Integration of corporate compliance with SAP Business One makes the auditing and reporting so much simpler as well as increases transparency.

Real-time integration of warehouse inventory and visibility of shipments across the entire logistics chain have enabled salespeople to provide their customers with accurate shipping and delivery times at any point in time. Now, TrickleStar’s Sales Team in the US can quote with confidence when products will arrive at the customer site.

SAP Business One has also helped the company to automate business processes, reducing non-value-added activities and the time required to complete them. This also means the administrative team now simply works less and working overtime is currently a thing of the past thus increasing employee satisfaction. Their ability to focus on important matters and automate everything else has significantly increased the productivity of the team and increased revenue per employee, one of the main KPI’s of the company. With SAP Business One simplifying the reporting when dealing with multiple currencies, TrickleStar can operate its global businesses seamlessly and remains competitive in today’s buyer landscape. TrickleStar is convinced that now the system is in place for the company to continue its spectacular growth without having to increase administration staff in the back office.

The cloud solution allows access to information from anywhere and anytime that promote a flexible working environment. SAP Business One has been a boon during the COVID-19 pandemic providing remote audit capability and the staff are not required to visit various locations. Moreover, the centralized hub of data optimized collaboration between the departments that enables them to deliver a better experience to customers. Axxis has helped to integrate their 3rd-party to TrickleStar’s SAP Business one, extending visibility into the entire supply chain. Having the foresight to implement SAP Business One while still being a growing company helped TrickleStar to fine-tune business processes without impacting ongoing business operations.

Planned enhancement projects such as integrating the Magento e-commerce store with SAP Business One for further automation or the deployment of the SAP Business One mobile app are in the pipeline. Furthermore, TrickleStar intends to include a discreet component bill of material planning as lead times have become a major issue due to US-China trade and tech war as well as COVID-19 pandemic.

• TrickleStar relied mainly on spreadsheets to run operations. Financials and accounting were managed with Quickbooks, and reconciliation between inventory and accounts happened weekly.
• Manual processes were required to ensure inventory information was up-to-date and disseminated via e-mail to sales and operations personnel.
• Due to manual processes, coupled with time differences between the US, HQ and manufacturing plants, it could take up to two days to revert with concrete and reliable delivery information to our customers. At times the staff had to work more than the standard working hours to complete day-to-day business operations.

• To implement a robust integrated Cloud ERP software to support continuous company growth.
• To identify a solution that can accommodate current and future planned business requirements, and reduce manual activities without significantly increasing our headcount in finance and administration.
• The solution needed to be affordable, user friendly, and mobile-ready. Besides, the software needed to support a fairly complex logistics process and provide the ability to track shipments from plant to the customer.

75% reduction in reporting of accounts

• Reporting of accounts cut from 4 weeks to 1 week after the end of the period.
• Instant feedback on the availability of stock and delivery to salespeople and clients. Builds better customer and supplier relationships with efficient logistics and inventory management.
• Live reporting and reports to clients vs 1-week turnaround on requests. Improves productivity by reducing response time to the customer.
• Live audit of numbers starting in November allowed TrickleStar to be one of the earliest listed companies to hold AGM in Singapore (within 3 months of year-end)

75% reduction in accounting and logistics staff

• No hiring of new staff despite turnover doubling. No need to hire more staff for the next doubling of turnover either.
• No staff resignations in finance, admin and logistics in the past 3 years with 100% retention. Improves employees’ satisfaction and productivity.
• 100% cut in overtime requirements. Increases overall efficiency of the employees by eliminating manual data entry and inaccurate or duplicated data.

65% reduction in IT costs

• TrickleStar was well prepared for the pandemic thanks to SAP B1 and Microsoft Teams being fully implemented.  Till today still practising work-from-home as has seen virtually no drop in company productivity.
• No more in house IT personnel or server requirement.

SAP Business One was selected due to its broad functionality, ease-of-use and ability to be integrated with the systems of external suppliers. The ability to run SAP Business One in the cloud also fitted with the company’s requirement to minimize support staff.

AXXIS Consulting was chosen as the implementation partner due to its experience with SAP and taking the time to understand TrickleStar’s complex business requirements and tailor the implementation.

“We are delighted with the support we have received from Axxis Consulting to help us take advantage of the features of SAP Business One. Their in-depth knowledge of the software combined with the ability to understand our unique business requirements have proven invaluable to the success of our project” 
- Bernard Emby, CEO

With an integrated SAP ERP system in place, Tricklestar could fulfil its ambitions to become a public listed company.

In 2018, TrickleStar embarks on a public listing exercise. Having SAP in place for the previous 3 years allowed the auditors to assess the companies financial strength with ease, as all data was available, traceable and auditable. The company could compile historic figures required for the prospectus easily, and present a stable, growing business with in-built corporate compliance to the public. As a result, the IPO for TrickleStar was extremely successful, and the company has since enjoyed continuous growth as well as significant returns to its shareholders.

In 2020, TrickleStar has won the SAP's Most Promising Startup or Entrepreneurship – The Rising Star Award: