Client: Elbassioni for Equipment
Date: 04/02/2019
Mr. Abdelhameed Kamal Abdelhameed - Chief Financial Officer
To listen to the full interview, please play the video below:
- Editor: Could you tell us about the size of the company’s business?
Mr. Abdelhameed: We are a group of companies, and our turnover is around 150 million Egyptian pounds.
- Editor: Could you tell us about the largest clients your company has worked with?
Mr. Abdelhameed: Almost every automotive company in Egypt — Toyota, Ghabbour, BMW, Mercedes, Kia, Renault, and others.
- Editor: How did you first hear about Nama ERP?
Mr. Abdelhameed: We were using a previous ERP system, but it was not a good fit for us, and I had spent a long time looking for something better. Then a sales manager at another company recommended Nama ERP to me. After visiting Nama’s website and YouTube channel, I contacted Namasoft and decided to buy, because I liked the software.
- Editor: Why did you choose Namasoft’s solutions to run the company’s business?
Mr. Abdelhameed: Before buying, I had drawn up a list of points the system had to satisfy. For example, I required that the system be web-based rather than desktop; that it be comfortably customisable; that it have an independent maintenance module suited to the company’s activity; and that data could be exported to Excel, which saves time. On top of that, I found in Nama ERP a highly capable alerts system, where messages can be sent by several channels including email and SMS; an approvals system that can be configured across more than one level, so that saving a document can require several approvals from different people; and a scheduled reports system as well. The truth is I needed a great many features, and I did in fact find them in Nama ERP.
- Editor: Has Nama ERP improved the way you work, and to what extent?
Mr. Abdelhameed: To a very great extent. The old system we were using did not have anything like this degree of flexibility — it had no reservations system, no approvals system, and no easy way to extract balances.
- Editor: How satisfied were you with the initial database setup carried out by Namasoft’s implementation specialists?
Mr. Abdelhameed: The truth is that the implementation team handled this excellently. But my honest criticism is that, over time, I discovered many options in the system that I had not been shown at the start, and which would have saved me a lot had I enabled them from day one. So I would ask that all of the system’s options and capabilities be documented, so the optimal workflow can be chosen.
- Editor: Mr. Abdelhameed, many of these options are developed progressively and released in later system updates.
Mr. Abdelhameed: I consider that a shortcoming too. Clients should be shown the system updates regularly so they learn about the new features as they arrive.
It is worth noting that all system updates have in fact been documented on a monthly basis, so that every improvement and every bug fixed in any given month can be reviewed, going back to 2016 and continuing to this day. They will be published soon, God willing, on the Namasoft website, and updated monthly so that new improvements and fixes can be followed.
- Editor: How satisfied were you with the way staff were trained, and with the timeline Namasoft planned — was it appropriate, and do you have any comments?
Mr. Abdelhameed: It was very appropriate, although it may have helped that we had been using an older system, which made it easier for staff to learn faster. The truth is the schedule was excellent — we went live in less than a month.
- Editor: Were your users able to learn Nama ERP as quickly as required, or were there some difficulties?
Mr. Abdelhameed: There was no difficulty at all. On the contrary, and as I said, the staff were already working with an older system, so this was not their first experience with accounting software. In fact, the old system had certain shortcomings, and our staff set about looking for solutions to them in Nama ERP — which left a reassuring impression when those solutions turned out to already be there. They even began asking for extra reports and improvements.
- Editor: Do you have any negative comments about the cost of Nama ERP, whether the price of the software or the value of the annual maintenance contract?
Mr. Abdelhameed: In all honesty, I do not know how Nama ERP is sold at this price, which is very modest given the enormous capabilities it contains. When I was searching for a system with all the features I needed, the amounts being asked were far higher than Nama ERP. There is one of the best-known accounting packages in Egypt and the Arab world, and when I put my required points to them I was turned down — but with Nama ERP I genuinely found what I was after.
- Editor: How satisfied are you with the level of technical support Namasoft provides?
Mr. Abdelhameed: The online support request system you run (Trouble Ticket) is a truly excellent system. I raise a support request online, the system sends an email about it, and whenever any support engineer adds notes or posts a solution to the problem I receive an email about that too, which keeps me continuously up to date on the request I submitted. I can also reply to any query in the request window, and none of this prevents contact by phone if that becomes necessary. It is excellent.
- Editor: Have you run into any problems such as slow replies or slow resolution?
Mr. Abdelhameed: Yes, that has happened, but to a reasonable degree — though sometimes a request took longer than it should. The reality is that some support specialists occasionally do not know how to solve the problem, which causes a certain delay until Eng. Ahmed Qasid, the Development Manager, resolves it.
- Editor: Are there any technical shortcomings you see in Nama ERP?
Mr. Abdelhameed: The shortcoming I see is that there is no separate database per company; instead each company is one of the dimensions of the database. That often means a requested change or improvement is reflected across all companies and not only the company that requested it, which can cause different companies’ requests to interfere with one another.
- Editor: But do problems like this get resolved?
Mr. Abdelhameed: Yes, they are resolved once discovered, but it does lead to some tug of war between the different companies.
It is worth noting that, in line with international systems, when Nama ERP is first set up the companies, sectors, branches, departments and so on are all defined within a single database. Namasoft considers this one of its strengths, since it makes it very easy to produce reports covering totals across more than one company, and makes transferring goods and assets from one company to another much simpler. Moreover, if company databases were completely separate, and some employees, items, customers and so on were used in more than one company, the data would have to be entered again in each company. If an employee works for two or three companies, for example, they would have to log in with two or three entirely separate users, which of course has its drawbacks. Also, if one company’s request is set up in the optimal way, no other company is affected by that request unless it wants it.
In any case, a client can define a database per company, but each database would then be on a separate server, which raises the price of the system.
- Editor: As you know, Namasoft allows its clients to submit support requests when they hit a bug or want an improvement developed. Have you ever done this, and how quickly did the company respond to your request?
Mr. Abdelhameed: Yes. One of the things I like a lot about Namasoft is its willingness to listen. Sometimes my call is not about a problem we have hit at all — I simply suggest some improvements, and the truth is I find a readiness to develop and support the features proposed.
- Editor: Have you ever complained about a member of staff, and what do you think of how management handled that complaint?
Mr. Abdelhameed: That did in fact happen once or twice. There is some variation in how well support staff handle requests, perhaps because some of them are still in training or do not have enough experience. To be fair, I asked that certain staff be excluded from handling my support requests, and things then went better, especially as new staff have since been hired.
- Editor: Are there any substantial improvements you would like Namasoft to add to the system?
Mr. Abdelhameed: As I said, the ability to separate companies completely from one another, and a thorough improvement to tax handling — which, for the record, is currently being implemented. I have also seen the system’s new interface and found some nice capabilities in it, such as being able to reorder column fields easily with the mouse without raising a support request, the ability to change colours, and so on. But to be honest, I have grown used to the old interface and feel it is better.
- Editor: Have you ever faced a disaster such as data loss because no backup was taken, and did you find enough help in such situations?
Mr. Abdelhameed: That has not happened, because I had already been through data loss with the old software before we moved to Nama ERP. Today the system supports cloud computing — our company database is on a server in Germany — and we also use the system’s built-in capability to take backups automatically, which we upload to Google periodically. So the likelihood of data loss is very low.
- Editor: Do you follow Namasoft’s YouTube channel, and do you have any comments on it?
Mr. Abdelhameed: In truth, when Nama ERP was recommended to me I went through your channel, and it gave me roughly 70% of the information I needed — something I did not find with other software companies, who required that they come in and give a presentation of the system, which would have cost me a great deal of time. With Nama, your channel genuinely spared us that. Separately, I sometimes use the channel to learn about particular features; for example, it was very helpful in showing me how to reserve items in the system.
- Editor: What do you think of Namasoft’s website, and do you have any comments on it?
Mr. Abdelhameed: Honestly, the website is not as professional as it should be, and it did not impress me. I used it at the beginning to look at Namasoft’s clients, to reassure myself before buying. It is not bad, but it does not match the capabilities of the system.
- Editor: Have you looked at the technical questions and answers service on the website?
Mr. Abdelhameed: Yes, and frankly it helped me with some of the questions I was looking into that I could not find on the company’s channel; I found them when I searched the questions. For the rest of my queries I would call the company.
- Editor: What features did you find in Nama ERP that were not in other systems?
Mr. Abdelhameed: The first of them is that it is web-based, whereas most systems are desktop, which has become a dead end. On top of that, the alerts and approvals system — which is very solid in Nama — and the ability to send alerts and approvals by email or SMS.
- Editor: Are there features you have seen in another system that you would like added to Nama?
Mr. Abdelhameed: In the system I worked on previously, I never needed to modify any of the standard reports.
It is worth noting that Nama ERP supports a large number of standard reports, which are continuously improved in line with the wishes of clients, implementation specialists and technical support, and that new standard reports are added from time to time as business requirements demand.
- Editor: Mr. Abdelhameed, given the technical level of Nama ERP and the way the company deals with its clients, how do you see Namasoft’s future, God willing?
Mr. Abdelhameed: I think that if you paid attention to marketing and advertising the system, you would achieve very large sales, God willing.
- Editor: Thank you for your time, Mr. Abdelhameed Kamal Abdelhameed, Chief Financial Officer of Elbassioni.