Hatch Mansfield

Rapidly expanding UK Distributor of Wine Brands

Hatch Mansfield were using a system called Agility (also known as LA Wines) to handle all their business processes. Paul Hughes-D'aeth, Financial Director of Hatch Mansfield explains: "It was a wine trade specific system with a relatively small user base. Originally we'd bought the system via a reseller, but when they went out of business we ended up dealing directly with the software producer. We felt service levels were becoming increasingly poor, and we were rapidly outgrowing the system. New releases and updates were a problem for us, with resultant major issues with stock and margins. As a result, we began the search for a new system."

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Evaluating New Systems - Recommendations and Referrals

"We needed a system which would keep pace with our growth, and one with a significant user base in the Wine and Drinks trade. We decided to talk to others in the trade, and see what they used and what they thought of the systems. de Facto S5 was given a glowing recommendation, and we got a detailed look at the system by another wine trade business. They were a very similar business to us, and S5 did a very good job for them, so we investigated further. Unlike other demonstrations, De Facto Software went to a lot of trouble to understand our business model properly, and to use relevant and realistic data in the demo. The ERP system was very impressive. We felt the personal reference was very important for us. After all, it's not just the software you are buying, but the implementation and after sales service too. We needed a system with critical mass in our Wine trade market, and one which would grow and keep pace with our future needs too. We found S5 met our criteria on all counts."

A Trouble free Implementation with a Rapid Deadline

"Given our circumstances we needed a fast and efficient implementation of the system. We needed to be up and running by mid October, ready for our pre-Xmas rush, and year ends. It was a very tight deadline indeed, but we knew De Facto had delivered to these sorts of time scales before. A careful implementation plan was put into place and with De Facto's implementation team at hand whenever they were needed, all the configuration and testing was done to schedule. The whole process went really well, very smooth, and from kick off to live was a mere 6 weeks. Deliveries, stock, sales invoices and all our accounts were up and running when we needed them."

Training gets us Rapidly up to Speed

"We found the training in the new system straight-forward and useful. S5 is easy to use, and we soon picked up on what we needed to know, such as Report writing, Business Intelligence, etc. S5 is such a powerful solution that there we are parts which we haven't implemented yet, but as our time constraints permit, we'll invest more time in learning more features, and reap the reward in the future. The system went down well with our staff. There's always some nervousness towards a new system, but there were so many quick wins over our old system that our users really appreciated S5 from day one."

Many Quick Wins for our Staff

"For example, in our business, we send a lot of stock out as marketing of various kinds. On our old system such samples had to go down as sales in the first instance, and then we had to go through and re-code everything accordingly with the correct codes as sales or F.O.C. marketing. That involved hundreds of lines so was a real chore, but S5 handles this correctly at the point of sale. Again, previously, we had hundreds of journals, but now that's simplified down and everything goes straight into the Nominal interface with the correct code.

Another example is where we receive stock from suppliers. We receive marketing support on those sales out, so when we sell a bottle we receive a sum back from the supplier. Previously we had to manually calculate the sum of money, but again S5 handles this all directly. Using S5's Contract Terms feature, all our business rules like this are set up. As a result, we save a lot of time, a lot of frustration, and have made huge gains in accuracy. With all these contract terms rules, things are pretty much guaranteed to go where we want them to go!"

Business Intelligence is a Big Benefit

"The new Business Intelligence module is great. Our sales people are now able to run all their own reports as they need them. They can now change the OLAP cube, and get the report they want exactly the way they want. This provides huge benefits in knowing what all their accounts are doing. Previously all this was accounting led, but now our sales people can simply access all this data themselves, together with the analysis they need. When we shift our SQL server over to the latest version, there'll be even more powerful reporting and analysis abilities in their hands."

Moving Forward with de Facto S5 - EDI

"We are now starting to utilise S5's EDI interfacing. Currently we have a standalone EDI system, and we have to re-key the information from it into S5. We have just shifted our first customer's EDI info into S5. It was straightforward to move it over, and the result is a lot of saved time and improved accuracy. We'll gradually move all our other customers over to S5 and reap the rewards there too."

Moving Forward - Marketing, CRM and Pricing

"We are also looking at implementing the integrated CRM - in fact, it was one of the main reasons why we chose S5. At the moment we have a separate database with all our marketing information in it. Of course, it's more work to maintain two databases. Once everything's set up in S5 CRM, all our emails will go through S5, and everyone will have total visibility of pricing, and be able to track where each price was set."

"Of course in our line of Wines and Spirits we have a very complex pricing structure. We have a huge amount of customer specific pricing. S5 has a number of powerful facilities which will allow us to greatly simplify our pricing activities. de Facto S5 is such a flexible system. We sell to our customers in a number of different ways - duty, bond, etc, and we offer such a range of discounts of quantity and so on. It's a complex system and has historically it has taken us a lot of time and effort to maintain it. With S5's powerful price list and pricing controls, a lot of headaches are avoided."

Easy Upgrading and Quality Support

"De Facto's ERP system is regularly updated, and we've found the updates very easy to install and use. In the time we've had the solution we've moved quickly to each new version. The help desk and support services have been good. At first we'd have minor things cropping up from time to time, but as we've got used to things we've actually used support less and less. It's still early days for us with the system, and there's so much there in the way of features and facilities. We've had the project manager from De Facto's implementation team down 2 or 3 times a year to see us. Each time we look at more features we can utilise, more processes we can run through the system, more ways we can save time and money. They have a lot of very experienced people at De Facto Software. Many of them have also worked in commerce, as well as the software side of things, so they can see what's involved from both perspectives. That's really invaluable to customers like us."

Wine Trade features in a Powerful ERP System

"Having purposely avoided low user base, wine trade specific systems, we've been very pleased with our decision. S5 has everything we need. Many of our customers work in unique ways. For example, one customer needs information from us via Business Intelligence in 3 week slots instead of the usual 4 week ones. Using Vistas we can output things to suit their needs. Since we took the system we know that a number of other companies in our line have followed suit - it does seem very well suited to Wines and Spirit trade activities. The solution is very flexible and configurable, and it doesn't just stop - it's constantly moving forward. We keep getting new benefits out of it, and I doubt that'll ever stop."