Medical manufacturer picks Saasu for Asian outpost

In April last year, Arthrocare, a global medical equipment manufacturer headquartered in Texas, USA, was planning to open operations in its fifteenth market, Singapore.

Arthrocare, which makes surgical implants, ran its operations on SAP, the enterprise resource management system. However, the company’s international controller Annika Hedström questioned whether it was worth rolling out SAP in such a small market.

There were two factors; time of implementation and cost. Hedström says she knew from past experience that SAP would cost several hundred thousand dollars and at least three to six months to install.

“It doesn’t matter if it's a small or large (market)”, the cost is the same, Hedström says. But the main reason was getting started. The commercial department had indicated they wanted to start selling in Singapore and Hedström was involved in setting up the business quickly.

“When we look at (whether to install) SAP or Saasu, it depended on where we are (in the world), what do we want to do, how big is the country, what is the timeline?” Hedström says.

Singapore, a single-currency country, was a relatively simple market. A business that would generate $1.2 million in revenue, Singapore would be far below the $56 million brought in by the top performer, Sweden.

Arthrocare had one finance person in Singapore who came in to do the accounts receivable and payable one day a week. Hedström’s financial team in Sweden looked after account reconciliations and monthly close.

“We needed something where we could have insight into what was going on without travelling to Singapore,” she says.

Hedström “happened to stumble” on Saasu. She found it simple, easy to use, easy to implement and with enough features to cover the business’ needs.

Implementation was “dead easy” and could have been finished within five days except that Hedström was still setting up the company at the time.

Next page: Using Saasu in Singapore from Stockholm