With funding from the European Union under its EU4Business initiative, EBRD - Advice for Small Businesses has helped a Georgian kitchen equipment manufacturer to improve performance and efficiency.
Nerji LTD is the sole manufacturer of commercial kitchenware in Georgia, with over 600 corporate clients. Stainless steel fridges, freezers, ovens, grills and cupboards under the Nerji brand can be found in restaurants, confectioners, hospitals and schools across the country. While the company also imports kitchen goods from abroad, Nerji has the production lines and machinery for their own appliance manufacturing, which has become the core business of the company.
Nerji decided to align its financial management to international standards not only to further increase production capacity and range, but to enlarge their customer base and attract investment. The plans included digitalisation of written transactions and the introduction of modern accounting software and more effective ways of utilising resources.
With EBRD assistance, the consulting company Nigollet Audit LLC helped Nerji to:
• improve and standardise the format of their financial reporting;
• introduce financial budgeting and planning procedures;
• improve financial management and managerial decision making processes, including planning and control;
• reduce tax risk exposure;
• retrain employees responsible for financial management.
One year after project completion, the company has increased sales by 53% while net profit is up 70%, and labour productivity has risen by 75%.
Now Nerji has a more diversified product portfolio and has expanded its warehouse and showroom. Management plan to go one step further in diversifying their product range by extending manufacturing to HoReCa industry appliances.
According to Giorgi Nozadze, CEO of Nerji: “Strong financial management is essential to ensure that a company keeps moving forward. With this joint project, we were able to integrate a system that simplifies retrieval of all financial data and information which helps us have better control of the business and plan future steps for attracting investment and growth.”
