 Direct
Wines
Where good wine and good service go hand
in hand
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Direct Wines Limited, owners of Laithwaites and The Sunday Times
Wine Club brands, is the world's largest independent wine specialist,
with turnover of over £200 million per annum. In operation
for more than 34 years, Direct Wines is also one of the world's
largest home delivery wine companies.
Direct Wines serves the drinker who loves wine but who has outgrown
the supermarket, which offers mostly branded wines. The company's
customers rely on it to provide good quality wines and a great deal
of advice in order to purchase the type of wine that is most suitable
to their tastes. Wines are delivered by the case, by mail order,
on average within three days. Direct Wines' growth has been phenomenal,
to the point where the company had amassed a wealth of IT systems
to process orders, manage stock and maintain customer databases.
The Problem
The company recognised that its existing systems would not be adequate
to handle further growth.
According to Direct Wines IT director, Michael Bennett, “We
had acquired new systems as we went along, some packages and some
bespoke IT, all on different platforms. There was no consistency
of data and this required excessive manual checking. We ran the
risk of having data that was not reliable and we could not afford
this.”
Bennett says, "Since the customer is becoming more demanding,
we needed to know that we could support our customer ordering and
service capability. We also wanted the data and systems that would
enable us to take more control of suppliers and carriers. Where
their own systems do not provide information about orders, we
wanted to be able to oversee the order at any stage of the supply
chain process."
The Solution
CIBER Novasoft was selected to implement an SAP solution providing
integration, reliable data, and the ability to grow with a rapidly
expanding business. CIBER Novasoft delivered consultants who were
capable of meeting Direct Wines’ requirements, which included
tight time-scales and a tight budget. It was CIBER Novasoft’s
management skills, retail knowledge, and proven methodology that
enabled a smooth and cost-efficient integration process.
CIBER Novasoft successfully implemented a number of SAP Retail
modules at Direct Wines, including logistics, materials management,
planning, sales and distribution, purchase orders, and warehouse
management.
Bennett says, "I do not think I have seen any IT cutover done
so well; it was incredibly smooth thanks to lots of planning. We
went live close to Christmas, when we do most of our sales, and
this smoothness helped us to minimise impact on customer service."
The Choice
After deciding to upgrade its existing systems, Direct Wines examined
several key ERP vendors, including SAP, Retek, JDA, Oracle and Fraser
Williams.
Bennett explains the difficulties in making a decision. “We
are both a retailer and a manufacturer, so that ruled out most choices.
SAP was the only vendor with experience in both camps. Even then,
we had concerns about SAP's retail experience, so we looked for
a reseller with a strong retail heritage to implement it.”
Direct Wines had initially chosen another SAP partner, but after
a costly and time-consuming blueprint process, as well as numerous
missed deadlines and deliverables, they chose CIBER Novasoft to
handle the implementation process.
Bennett says, “The quality of CIBER Novasoft's consultants
was one of the deciding factors in their favour when we had to retender.
Issues were dealt with quickly and efficiently by them, always to
our satisfaction.”
The Benefits
CIBER Novasoft was able to successfully implement a full-scale
ERP and warehouse management solution for Direct Wines at an affordable
cost and in record time. Direct Wines has been extremely positive
about the benefits the upgrade has provided to the business.
According to Bennett, "We have already achieved more than
a 10 percent reduction in stock volumes and have also accelerated
stock turns by 15 percent. We have cut costs and improved efficiency
in a number of other areas, including bonded warehouse and invoice
matching." He continues, “We have single source for all
our data and we know that it is reliable and accurate. Users can
trust it.”
Bennett concludes by saying, “We are certain that SAP will
enable us to continue to grow at a more rapid pace than we would
have been able to with our existing systems.”
About CIBER Novasoft UK
CIBER Novasoft is a leading SAP consultancy providing world-wide
support for a range of high profile clients in the retail sector.
We have maintained our reputation as the world's leading SAP Retail
implementation partner ever since being the first partner to implement
SAP Retail when it was launched in 1996.
CIBER Novasoft’s success in the UK has been built on the
retail industry’s main priority today: integration of systems,
data and processes to provide a seamless retail management and customer
experience across multiple channels. Our customers include numerous
high profile brand names such as The Big Food Group, B&Q, Direct
Wines, Dunelm Mill, French Connection, Goldsmiths, and Halfords.
CIBER Novasoft is part of CIBER, Inc. (NYSE: CBR), a leading international
systems integration consultancy providing superior value-priced
services to both private and government sector clients. CIBER’s
global delivery services are offered on a project or strategic staffing
basis, in both custom and enterprise resource planning (ERP) package
environments, and across all technology platforms, operating systems
and infrastructures. CIBER serves client businesses from over 60
U.S. offices, 20 European offices and four offices in Asia, operates
in
18
countries with
8,500
employees, and has an annual revenue of more than
approximately $1.2 billion
million. CIBER is included in the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P
Small Cap 600 Index.
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