Grant Thornton Completes J.D. Edwards Implementation at Westcon in Record Time
Westcon Goes Live with J.D. Edwards' OneWorld Financials in Only Six Weeks
CHICAGO, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Grant Thornton, one of the world's largest professional services organizations, today announced that it has successfully completed the financials phase of its J.D. Edwards' (Nasdaq: JDEC) OneWorld(TM) installation at Westcon, a global distributor of high-performance specialty networking products and services, in only six weeks. The team attributes the rapid implementation to a combination of a proven implementation methodology, experienced and knowledgeable Grant Thornton and J.D. Edwards consultants and a focused and committed client.
Westcon retained Grant Thornton in October 1998 to implement the J.D. Edwards Sales Order Processing, Procurement, Distribution and Financial suite. The implementation team consisted of dedicated personnel from Grant Thornton, Westcon and J.D. Edwards.
"This implementation was accomplished with teamwork, full time dedication, quick decision making and outstanding coordination," said Bob Barnes, director of IS for Westcon. "Thanks to the collaboration of Grant Thornton's staff, our business will remain competitive and reap the benefits of the system in significantly less time than we expected."
Westcon has already benefited from the installation with increased and more flexible reporting, reduced manual effort and ease of visibility of transaction data. Additional benefits will include improved financial consolidation and reporting, improved workflow efficiency, improved user access, reduced and easier application maintenance and enhancement, Y2K compliance and improved stability and ability to process growing transaction volumes.
"Our three-tier team combines the best technology professionals with top management support," said John Yin, engagement partner for Grant Thornton. "As the alignment of business and IT strategy, coupled with an industry-wide shortage of IT skills, continues to place increasing competitive pressures on our clients, we envision that an increasing number of companies will need to be able to accelerate their implementation to avoid jeopardizing their businesses."
The comprehensive business review and implementation process included redesigning the chart of accounts, development of processes for General Ledger, Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable, conversion of General Ledger history, Open Accounts Receivable and Open Accounts Payable as well as interfacing of the legacy applications and internal user training.
The team has started on the subsequent phase, which includes implementation of additional financials at international locations as well as Sales Order Processing and Distribution. Additionally this phase will include development of Web-based access to the system including internal processing and external vendor and customer access.
About Grant Thornton
Grant Thornton is a professional services firm that helps people and organizations to achieve their objectives. Through Grant Thornton International, it serves clients in 550 offices in 90 countries. The World Wide Web address for Grant Thornton is grantthornton.com. Grant Thornton LLP is a member firm of Grant Thornton International.
About Westcon
Westcon Group, Inc. is a global value-added distributor of networking technology products. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, the company operates in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. A recognized industry leader in value-added service and support and a trendsetter in connectivity training for resellers, the company was founded in 1985. Westcon's new headquarters is located at 520 White Plains Road, Tarrytown, N.Y. 10591; tel. 914-829-7179; fax 914-768-7173; westcon.com.
About J.D. Edwards
J.D. Edwards provides Idea to ActionO software for managing the enterprise and supply chain. The Company's integrated applications give customers control over their front office, manufacturing, logistics/distribution, human resources and finance processes for the consumer products, industrial and service industries. J.D. Edwards enables Idea to Action with ActivEra(TM), a collection of tools and technologies that extend J.D. Edwards' SCOREX supply chain solution and OneWorld(TM) and WorldSoftware(TM) enterprise business software. ActivEra allows customers to change their enterprise software quickly and easily during and after implementation. The Company's solutions operate in multiple computing environments, including Windows NT(R), UNIX(R) and OS/400(R), and are Java(TM) and HTML enabled.
Founded in 1977, J.D. Edwards is headquartered in Denver and posted fiscal 1998 revenues of $934 million. Additional information can be obtained by contacting the Company at 800-727-5333, or via the Internet at www.jdedwards.com.
SOURCE Grant Thornton
CO: Grant Thornton; Westcon Group, Inc.; J.D. Edwards |
