As South Africa’s Premium Apple Reseller, Digicape offers an extensive range of Apple products, services and training. Digicape was first established in Cape Town over 15 years ago and is a national company today employing 85 people in multiple locations. Their staff includes retail, service technicians, product specialists and each is properly trained by Apple’s various certification programs to ensure customers have access to accurate information from knowledgable experts.
Digicape serves both individual customers, through retail locations, and organizations, through business solutions. Customers will find Apple’s full range of products in Digicape stores, with free training courses open to the community, expert advice and on-site warranty repairs. For businesses, Digicape supports their clients every step of the way, from helping organizations choose the right technology and setting up the infrastructure to training and transitioning to the Apple ecosystem. Digicape field technicians are on-call for dispatch, to deliver personalized post-sale service, to both retail customers and Digicape business clients which include private companies, financial organizations, healthcare sector and educational institutions.
“We have quite an incredible accreditation and knowledge base, Apple Certified Mac Technicians, Apple Solutions Experts,” Mr. Harper continues, “our staff gets the education and is deemed by Apple as experts in their field.”
Five years prior to using Standard ERP, Digicape was using a smaller, limited program. “We eventually outgrew it,” Mr. Harper explains, “particularly with reporting mechanisms and the front end POS system. We have a mobile workforce and needed a comprehensive system to accommodate that, a system that allowed for analytics based reporting.” In 2011, the company began looking for a system with functionalities for POS, job costing, accounting and a sales ledger that would track serial numbers. The company needed a native solution that was seamlessly compatible with their Mac oriented business as they wanted to avoid software designed for another platform forcing them to, for example, use a remote desktop or portal. With these standards in mind, Digicape’s task team investigated a range of different systems.
HansaWorld and Digicape worked together in tailoring Standard ERP to their unique company environment. The implementation process began in 2011 and went live in March of 2012. Their POS needs included external scanners and customizations were ordered for both POS and Sales Ledger.
“Each of our products are serialized and recorded in the system and we need to have accurate, real-time information. Standard ERP handles this process brilliantly.”
Allan Harper | Financial Director
After implementation was complete, Digicape was satisfied in having an attractive POS system native to their Mac systems. In addition to compatibility with external hardware, Digicape worked with HansaWorld to tailor the POS system for their specific needs in building on the integration with Sales Ledger and CRM. “We are an Apple store,” Mr. Harper continues, “and customers should know that our entire front and back end run on Mac systems.”
Point Of Sale and inventory management has improved greatly with the introduction of Enterprise. The intuitive touch screen interface makes it easy and efficient to enter items in the fast paced environment of a multi store chain, while reducing the costs of training. Integrated simulations and forecasts also provide a comprehensive picture of future results as well as suggestions for future purchases.
As Digicape grows, they continue to review the extensive functionalities within Standard ERP and have recently started using the Contracts module for their service level agreements and rental products. “We want to use Standard ERP to its full potential,” says Mr. Harper, “whether it’s the Skype integration, Business Communicator or Job Costing. With native software, as an Apple Premium Reseller, we’re able to deliver the ‘wow factor’ straight from our Apple products using Standard ERP.”
