The commercial arm of St John's Ambulance is updating its business process technology to better support its sister organisation, the charity first aid group.

St John’s Ambulance Supplies (SJAS) is to use SAP Business One and AlphaGen to help improve growth and expects an immediate return on investment through increased sales, stock level management and streamlined administration processes.

The software will go live in March across multiple sites of SJAS departments, allowing orders to be automatically pulled up while an employee is on the phone, removing the need to manually search for the information.

SJAS needed an integrated system to improve efficiency, said general manager Stephen English.

"We selected the software because it offered a single integrated approach. It is also more cost effective, where multiple upgrades can be expensive," he said.