The Business
The URUD'OR group is made up of top-notch citrus companies
-Azucitrus, Sandupay, Agrisur, El Repecho, Costa de Oro and Naranjales De Souza
? which together account for over 40% of Uruguayan citrus exports. Even though
the main sales destination is the European Community, the group also sells
citrus fruits to the Eastern European, Middle and Far East, and Canadian
markets.
The group owns more than 10,000 hectares
of land, of which 4,630 are used for plantations. Approximate production is
114,000 tons, of which 51,700 are exported, 12,450 are poured into the industry
sector, and 4,700 stay in the domestic market. Its staff is made up of 370
permanent workers and 2,530 seasonal workers. URUD'OR has received the ISO
9001:2000 certification and in 2002 it also received the Good Agricultural
Practices System certification, in compliance with the EUREPGAP protocol.
URUD'OR has thus become the first Latin American company in obtaining said
certification.
Difficulties in Analyzing its Business
For the URUD'OR group, as for other companies,
analyzing the results of a given season implied waiting until the final
settlements of their clients were processed, having piles of fanfold sheets
filled with lists of information, which was sometimes done in several stages,
depending on the kind of data the directors needed.
The very nature of the export business made it difficult for them
to know the final results measured in dollars, due to the different types of
arbitration and currencies used in the operations. Besides, there is also the
complexity of the citrus business. There are many variables involved in defining
the final price: the fruit category, caliber, weight, quantity, shipment
conditions, packaging, etc.
URUD'OR used to have a
system that was several years old; it was developed in Clipper and needed
constant changing. Elena Bing, the engineer responsible for system development
at the URUD'OR group remembers how they were always lagging behind in carrying
out the queries required by company directors.
The Solution
The company decided to update its systems by developing an export
program with GeneXus, and using GXQuery as the tool for the company directors to
make queries themselves on the export program.
After the implementation of GXQuery, "for the first time ever, we
could present senior managers and company directors with a provisional closing
report before the end of the season," said Marta Colombo, Manager of URUD?OR?s
Administrative and Financial Department.
"We'd
like to highlight the practicality of GXQuery. In the past, it used to be very
complicated for us to compact the information and come up with a report, because
of the number of variables that have an impact on the business. Besides, we
always ended up finding other ways to do it. By using GXQuery, we have defined a
chart that allows us to analyze the data in different ways, and, since it is
connected to the export program, the data are constantly updated. This is a
major change that has enabled us to prepare the reports required by senior
managers and company directors in a timely fashion. As a matter of fact, they
are all very satisfied for having invested in this project," explained Colombo.
Bing announced that the information is currently
sent by e-mail to those who prefer it in that format, and in the future, queries
will be available through the Internet. "We were seduced by the fact that
GeneXus would make things easy for us to follow the technological developments,"
she added.
http://www.urudor.com.uy
http://www.gxquery.com