hand, general demand has grown less strongly than before because of increasing competitive
pressure (including pressure from suppliers to take inventory from them); on the other hand,
customers were able to demand more favorable payment conditions resulting in longer credit
periods. However, Liu Shengrui noted that both accounts receivable levels and inventory levels for
comparable types of goods and payment conditions had decreased over the course of the last year.
Regarding productivity effects, only anecdotal evidence is available as the company has not yet compiled comprehensive statistical information. For example, the computer peripherals department used to have a position of a sales assistant in each platform whose job was to monitor order- and payment flows. This job has been entirely eliminated resulting in the saving of ten full-time positions. Another example regards the finance department. Employees for accounts receivables and general ledger used to spend about 80% of their time for basic tasks such as creating accounts receivable; this percentage has been reduced, on average, to 20% thus freeing employees for higher value tasks such as analysis of bad debts. Both these examples indicate that significant productivity gains have been realized by implementing the ERP system