The client: African Automobile SL Ltd., Freetown, Sierra Leone
African Automobile SL Ltd. is the authorised distributor and Sierra Leone unit of Dubai Auto Gallery, UAE. Operating from their headquarters in Calaba Town, Freetown, they offer vehicle sales, genuine spare parts, and authorised servicing — across 35 locations nationwide.
At that scale, the operational complexity is enormous. At any given moment, stock is moving between locations, sales orders are being raised at multiple branches, service jobs are open at several outlets, purchase orders are being processed centrally, and the management team needs to know what is happening — accurately — across every single location.
Before MUST ERP, that visibility simply did not exist.
The problem: 35 locations, zero central visibility
African Automobile SL Ltd.'s operations before the ERP implementation looked like this:
- Each location maintained its own stock records — in spreadsheets, registers, or basic billing software
- Inter-branch stock transfers were tracked manually, leading to discrepancies and ghost stock
- Purchase orders were raised without knowing the real-time inventory position across all branches
- Sales teams at individual locations had no idea what was available at nearby branches — so customer queries went unanswered or incorrectly answered
- Management could not get a consolidated view of sales, purchases, and inventory without waiting for end-of-day or end-of-week reports from each location
- Overstocking at some branches and stockouts at others happened regularly — because there was no mechanism to rebalance inventory across locations in real time
The result: slower order processing, poor customer experience, excess capital locked in inventory, and leadership making decisions on stale, inaccurate data.
"We had 35 branches operating like 35 separate businesses. We needed them to operate like one."
Why they chose MUST ERP
African Automobile SL Ltd. evaluated multiple ERP options before selecting MUST ERP by Codestrela Technologies. The deciding factors were:
- Multi-location architecture built in — MUST ERP is designed for businesses with multiple branches and warehouses, not retrofitted with a plugin or add-on
- Centralised inventory with location-level control — the Calaba Town headquarters could see everything, while each of the 35 locations managed its own operations within its defined scope
- Cloud-based, accessible from anywhere — critical for a business spread across Sierra Leone, with the parent group in UAE
- Automotive-ready configuration — vehicle sales, genuine spare parts, accessories, and authorised servicing could all be tracked within the same system
- Customisation flexibility — Codestrela's implementation team tailored workflows, reports, and access rights to match how African Automobile SL Ltd. actually operates
What was implemented
Codestrela's implementation team deployed MUST ERP across the headquarters in Calaba Town, Freetown and all 35 locations nationwide, covering the following operational areas:
Centralised inventory management
All 35 locations now share a single inventory database. Management can see total stock across the entire business, stock at any individual location, and movement history — in real time, from any device. Inter-branch transfers are raised, approved, and tracked within the system, eliminating manual reconciliation entirely.
Sales management
Sales orders raised at any branch are recorded centrally. Each location's sales team can check stock availability not just at their own branch, but across the entire network — enabling them to fulfil customer requests from a nearby location when their own branch is out of stock. Quotations, invoices, and sales reports are generated within MUST ERP, replacing multiple disconnected tools.
Purchase management
Purchasing is now driven by real inventory data. Central procurement can raise purchase orders based on consolidated stock levels and consumption patterns across all 35 locations — not on guesswork or delayed manual reports. Purchase receipts update inventory in real time at the receiving location.
Operations and location management
Each of the 35 locations operates as a defined entity within MUST ERP — with its own users, stock positions, sales records, and operational data. The central team can view any location's operations instantly. Role-based access controls mean each location team sees what they need — and nothing they should not.
Service and repair management
One of the most impactful modules implemented was the Service and Repair module — purpose-built for automotive after-sales operations. Every vehicle sold by African Automobile SL Ltd. is recorded in the system at the point of sale, creating a complete ownership and service history linked to the customer and the unit.
When a customer brings a vehicle in for servicing at any of the 35 locations, the service team can instantly pull up the full record: what was sold, when, what warranty applies, which parts were previously replaced, and what the service schedule requires. Warranty checks that previously depended on paper files or staff memory are now instant and error-free.
Service jobs are opened as job cards within MUST ERP — tracking parts consumed from inventory, labour performed, technician assignment, job status, and billing — all in one place. Spare parts used in repairs are automatically deducted from the branch inventory, keeping stock records accurate in real time.
The result is a transformation in after-sales quality: no missed warranties, no incorrect billing, no guesswork on service history, and a significantly improved customer experience across every service outlet.
Reporting and analytics
Management now has access to consolidated reports across all locations: total sales, branch-wise performance, service job status, warranty claims, spare parts consumption, inventory ageing, purchase vs. consumption analysis, and more — without waiting for manual data collection from 35 different sources.
The results
Within the first operational quarter after full deployment across all 35 locations, African Automobile SL Ltd. reported significant improvements across their core operational metrics:
- Order processing time reduced by approximately 60% — sales teams could confirm stock availability and raise orders in minutes instead of hours
- Inventory discrepancies across branches dropped sharply — real-time tracking replaced end-of-day manual reconciliation
- Stockouts at individual locations decreased — management could see low-stock situations forming and act before branches ran out
- Inter-branch transfers increased — once teams could see what was available elsewhere in the network, they started utilising the full inventory intelligently rather than always raising new purchase orders
- Service and repair quality improved significantly — warranty checks became instant, service history was available at every outlet, and parts consumed in repairs updated inventory automatically
- Human errors in after-sales eliminated — incorrect warranty claims, missed service records, and manual billing mistakes dropped to near zero
- Management reporting time collapsed from days to minutes — consolidated views across sales, service, and inventory replaced manual aggregation from 35 different sources
"For the first time, we could see our entire business — all 35 locations — on one screen. That changed how we make decisions."
What this case study tells multi-location businesses
African Automobile SL Ltd.'s experience is not unique to the automotive industry or to West Africa. The same challenge — multiple locations, disconnected data, management flying blind — affects distributors, retailers, manufacturers, and service businesses across India and globally.
The core lesson is simple: growth without centralised systems creates operational debt. Every new location added without a unified ERP makes the problem harder to fix later — more staff to retrain, more data to migrate, more processes to standardise.
The businesses that scale cleanly are the ones that implement centralised operations infrastructure early — before the chaos becomes too expensive to fix.
Is your multi-location business running on disconnected systems?
If you manage more than two locations — in retail, distribution, automotive, manufacturing, hospitality, or any other sector — and your teams are still reconciling stock and sales manually across branches, MUST ERP can give you the same centralised visibility African Automobile SL Ltd. now has.
Codestrela Technologies has implemented MUST ERP for businesses across India, UAE, Africa, and South-East Asia. Our implementation team handles configuration, data migration, training, and ongoing support.