Released on: June 3, 2008, 5:01 am

Press Release Author: Victoria Park

Industry: Software

Press Release Summary: About Sightsavers International
Sightsavers International is a registered UK charity (Registered charity numbers
207544 and SC038110) that works in more than 30 developing countries to prevent
blindness, restore sight and advocate for social inclusion and equal rights for
people who are blind and visually impaired. There are 45 million blind people in
the world; 75% of all blindness can be prevented or cured. Since 1950, Sightsavers
has restored sight to more than 5.65 million people and treated over 100 million
more.


Press Release Body: Sightsavers works with partners in 33 countries to help combat
blindness and restore sight through specialist treatment and eye care. They also
support people who are irreversibly blind by providing education, counselling and
training.

Carole Webb, Procurement Officer, at Sightsavers said: \"We needed a solution that
would strengthen the effectiveness of Sightsavers\' global procurement activities,
reduce unnecessary administration time, eradicate duplication of effort and improve
management information.
There was also a real need to replace the current paper-based system as there was no
central record for activities carried out by the various departments at our Head
Office in Haywards Heath, let alone our overseas offices.\" Carole added \"We are a
Procurement Team of 3 people and we have our work cut out with over 1000 products on
the standard list of equipment that is procured and supplied to offices and partners
around the world. The products vary greatly - from pharmaceuticals to vehicles and
ophthalmic equipment to textbooks.\"

The Project Team conducted a formal tender process outlining Sightsavers\'
requirements - which included integration with their existing SunSystems financial
accounting solution. Carole explained:
\"Sightsavers chose Proactis from Sapphire as it provides the functionality that our
rigorous procurement procedures demand. Sapphire supports our SunSystems
application, and so the fact that Sapphire can support both solutions was a plus
point. What\'s more, the implementation of Proactis will provide us with a good
opportunity to upgrade to the latest version of SunSystems too.\"

Nick Williams, Sightsavers\' Account Manager at Sapphire, outlined three significant
benefits that the organisation will see post-implementation.
He said \"A major consideration for Sightsavers is the low bandwidth internet
connections available in many of the countries in which the organisation operates.
Proactis facilitates worldwide use as users don\'t need to remotely login to a UK
server-based system.\" He continued, \"The Stores Module in Proactis will also prove
a real benefit to Sightsavers as it will enable them to take advantage of economies
of scale with functionality to efficiently manage storage, allocation of stock and
deployment of their resources\". Nick concluded, \"Finally, as a web based solution
that eliminates the need for paper-based reporting, Proactis offers a carbon neutral
solution which is a real plus point for an environmentally-aware international
organisation such as Sightsavers.\"

Of Sapphire, Carole said: \"The Sapphire team was very helpful: they demonstrated the
benefits of Proactis with workshops, gave us the ability to discuss our requirements
in detail and subsequently demonstrated the solution in action with our own items
and suppliers.\"

Looking ahead, Carole says: \"We look forward to working together with Sapphire to
achieve a successful implementation. When Proactis is implemented we\'ll receive
support for the full procure-to-pay process - from sourcing to order placement and
monitoring; as well as providing a wide range of management reporting options.\"


Web Site: http://www.sapphiresystems.co.uk

Contact Details: Media contact:
Postal Address:
Shell Building, 10 Lower Thames Street, London, EC3R 6AF
Victoria Park
+44 (0)20 7648 2000