Puravankara Projects, a real estate developer, has completed the deployment of Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.1, (Oracle Applications) as part of its expansion plans to address India’s growing residential and commercial real estate requirements.

Interestingly, since not too many real estate companies are using ERPs these days, why does Puravankara need one?

In an interview with Biztech, Ravi Ramu, director, Puravankara Projects, and Ashish Puravankara, chairman and MD, Puravankara Projects, explains how Oracle fits perfectly into Puravanakara’s growth strategy.

Quadra legacy

"Real estate today lacks corporate governance. Considering that, the support systems are not up to the mark. We are a combination of real estate and development. We have an in house construction team of 500 engineers. Hence, implementing a scalable ERP solution was an absolute imperative, since what we wanted was greater operational efficiency and employee productivity, lower cost and better services to our suppliers and customers," said Ravi Ramu.

The Oracle Applications solution replaces Puravankara’s legacy IT infrastructure, which mainly comprised of Quadra, an ERP solution specifically for the construction industry. "Although we were using Quadra earlier, it was not scalable enough, and as we were growing, it was crucial for us to settle with a much better and scalable ERP system," said Ashish Puravankara.

Collaborating with KPMG & Oracle

KPMG and Oracle were jointly involved in the implementation of the system. KPMG, with its experience within the real estate sector, and Oracle with its technology strengths, were able to provide a solution that would put Puravankara in good stead to face the times ahead, especially considering the real estate sector is quickly emerging.

"KPMG, was of great assistance to us. Along with Oracle, they enabled our deployment in a matter of 14 weeks. Oracle and KPMG gave us options, so that their business suite would fit our business as per our needs. This kind of customisation was the reason that we opted for Oracle rather than any other ERP," said Ashish Puravankara.

All for the customers

Both Ravi Ramu and Ashish Puravankara, believe that the implementation will help the company achieve operational excellence, improve customer satisfaction and support its aggressive expansion plans.

"We have always spoken to our customers, and sold to them directly. There are no ’middle men’ involved. This is why it was important for us to deliver to our customers and make it easier for them to make purchases from us. This is another reason why we decided to implement the ERP system," continued Ravi Ramu.

Expanding fast and wide

The company has purchased more than 30 licenses of the business suite. It has implemented modules of the business suite, such as General Ledger, Payables, Receivables, Cash Management, Assets, Purchasing, Inventory, Project Costing and Internet Procurement.

The Oracle Applications are hosted centrally in Puravankara offices in Bangalore and are available over a secure internet connection from all their site offices and regional offices (within and outside the country).

Plans to implement CRM products

Puravankara projects is currently running a global single instance of the Oracle Applications and intends to keep it that way in future too. Puravankara plans to extend its current implementation by adding on the Human Resources, order management and the CRM suite of products.