As digital automotive options supplier CarDekho gears up for its IPO subsequent week, the corporate is putting expertise on the core of its monetary transformation. The 18-year-old platform, which has grown right into a multi-vertical enterprise spanning used automobile gross sales, financing, insurance coverage, mobility, and fleet companies, depends on Oracle’s cloud-based enterprise useful resource planning (ERP) resolution to streamline its monetary operations.
Chatting with AIM, Aditya Changoiwala, group monetary controller at CarDekho, highlighted this partnership. Referring to the books of account closures, Changoiwala stated, “We had a 15-day closing cycle, and our goal is to deliver it all the way down to round seven days with Oracle options.”
With the IPO on the horizon, he burdened that expertise is central to this effort and helps present real-time insights to management groups. The platform permits them to shift from guide, time-consuming information entry to a extra automated data-driven strategy.
Transferring from SAP to Oracle
Earlier than switching to Oracle, CarDekho was working on an outdated, on-prem model of SAP. In accordance with Changoiwala, the system was “primitive”, lacked enhancements, and struggled to help the corporate’s evolving wants, particularly after buying a number of companies.
“We have been actuallyspending some huge cash on sustaining the server and doing upkeep,” he stated. “Within the final couple of years, we had acquired just a few corporations and have been discovering it tough to combine them into SAP. Furthermore, scalability was a problem.” After evaluating a number of options, the corporate chosen Oracle for its cloud-based ERP, EPM, and SCM modules.
Oracle Cloud ERP operates on a pay-as-you-go mannequin, eliminating the necessity for important upfront investments in {hardware} and infrastructure that conventional on-premise SAP methods require. This results in substantial financial savings in operational and upkeep prices, permitting corporations to handle budgets higher and reallocate funds in direction of innovation and development.
Explaining the challenges with SAP, Changoiwala stated that their new companies are on the cloud, for which they may not keep a separate workforce. Furthermore, as SAP is on-prem, the updates weren’t out there there. “Even if you wish to replace or improve to the opposite model, it’s a separate implementation cycle that you could undergo,” he stated.
“We thought if we have been to maneuver on to the cloud-based server, we might get all the benefits of SaaS, after which we wouldn’t have to take care of the infrastructure, and all of the updates that Oracle releases each quarter,” he added.
Changoiwala stated that the implementation was phased. “We’ve got already applied ERP. We’re within the means of implementing EPM. In one other couple of months, we begin on the SCM journey.” The target was to consolidate methods and cut back reliance on Excel and fragmented processes.
CarDekho will not be alone in transferring away from SAP. In accordance with Oracle, in 2021 alone, over 100 corporations changed SAP with Oracle.
India Pistons, an auto elements maker, is one other firm that switched to Oracle ERP. After transferring from legacy methods to Oracle Cloud, operational prices have been lower by 30% to 40%, and productiveness was boosted by decreasing guide work. The corporate additionally reassigned workers to extra helpful duties.
International examples embrace corporations equivalent to Batelco, ClayCo and Lovisa.
Furthermore, many SAP prospects face challenges with the corporate’s complicated and closely customised platforms, unclear migration paths to S/4HANA, and fragmented information fashions. Oracle Cloud affords a extra streamlined, future-ready suite of purposes that allow sooner implementation and faster realisation of enterprise worth.
Why Oracle?
By utilizing Oracle’s capabilities, CarDekho goals to enhance monetary reporting and ship real-time insights essential for the enterprise to attain monetary prudence throughout enterprise items.
With growth plans throughout Southeast Asia and the Center East underway, the corporate has turned to Oracle’s cloud-based ERP options to handle challenges associated to scalability, integration, and reporting.
Within the final 18 months, CarDekho has taken three modules from Oracle, together with ERP, enterprise efficiency administration (EPM), and provide chain administration (SCM), that are in numerous levels of implementation throughout companies.
With a turnover of ₹3,000 crore yearly, Changoiwala stated the corporate is EBITDA optimistic on the guardian stage, whereas some companies are nonetheless in growth levels.
Standardisation and Actual-Time Insights
CarDekho’s finance operations now run on Oracle ERP, supporting day-to-day accounting, invoicing, and statutory monetary reporting. “The bottom job is true now on ERP,” Changoiwala stated. “All of the statutory reporting that we’re doing when it comes to making our financials…is being accomplished utilizing ERP.”
One of many foremost benefits has been the transfer in direction of standardisation. “Now most of our companies are on the identical occasion. We get real-time info round their closing,” he stated. “We don’t must depend on Excel sheets. We’re in a position to get a consolidated view.”
Whereas the ERP system remains to be stabilising, Changoiwala expects additional worth as soon as Oracle’s EPM module goes stay. “Inner Administration Info System (MIS) and budgeting ought to go stay in one other quarter,” he stated. “That’s after we’ll be capable to have a greater view of income forecasts.”
Early Steps In direction of AI Adoption
Whereas generative AI isn’t but a core a part of CarDekho’s finance operations, there’s energetic curiosity in automation by AI brokers. “We’re taking a look at utilizing AI brokers to automate customary processes,” Changoiwala stated. “I’ve an enormous workforce that spends a variety of time digging into information and doing repetitive duties. That’s the place we’re making an attempt to leverage Oracle’s AI capabilities.”
As for generative AI, Changoiwala believes it’s not but prepared for deeper analytical duties. “It might undoubtedly collate information and summarise it. Whereas it’s for good decision-making, I feel it’s nonetheless far off.”
CarDekho’s embrace of Oracle reveals how finance groups are changing outdated processes with cloud-first platforms that drive pace, consistency, and scalability, laying the groundwork for IPOs and future tech adoption.
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