 Unwins
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Unwins is a family owned group which operates 388 stores in southern
England, where it is the largest operator of off-licence wine stores.
The group employs more than 2,130 people.
Founded in 1843 as a London-based wine merchant, Unwins was acquired
in 1921 by Phillips Newman and Co. Phillips Newman was a leading
wine and spirit importer, bonder and bottler established by M.A.
Wetz in 1893. Unwins has 84 shareholders, all of whom are descended
from the family of M.A. Wetz.
Today the Group consists of three interdependent companies, operating
in the alcoholic drinks sectors: Unwins Ltd (Retail) operating the
brands Unwins and Phillips Newman, UDS Ltd (Logistics), and Phillips
Newman Ltd (Wholesale).
The Problem
The problem facing Unwins was the overall age and breadth of its
existing systems, both hardware and applications, some of which
were 20 years old.
Unwins IT Director Richard Rotter explains, “While our systems
worked well in the past, they no longer served the business we had
become; we could not manage promotions efficiently or generate an
accurate picture of profitability store by store.”
In the case of Unwins’ EPoS systems, the company needed to
update the software and modernise the hardware to improve transaction
time, reduce hardware failure rate, and migrate to Chip & PIN,
and was certain the existing systems could not cope or be updated
to handle the new CHIP cards.
The biggest problem in terms of impact on the business was inconsistency
of information. Richard explains, “Different systems generated
different information and we could not easily reconcile this back
to a single figure for key performance indicators.”
Unwins therefore wanted a solution that would enable it to tap
into the store managers’ local intelligence, and make data
available centrally, to show how individual lines, categories and
product associations performed by store, region and company-wide.
The Solution
Unwins decided to replace its assortment of legacy applications
with a fully integrated ERP system that would allow central management
of stock, improve both category management and supplier compliance,
and deliver timely and accurate management information into the
business.
The implementation approach entailed four phases: a pilot of the
integration between the central SAP system and the new EPoS hardware/software,
rollout of the new EPoS software and hardware to the stores, Finance
and Wholesale, and Warehouse Management.
Unwins also implemented SAP Business Warehouse in order to generate
sales and margin information.
The Choice
Richard says, “There was some uncertainty among Unwins senior
management over choosing SAP, as we had all heard stories about
failed implementations. However, we were persuaded that this was
the best solution, made easier by the selection of CIBER Novasoft,
the UK’s foremost provider of SAP solutions in retailing.
They worked with us to develop a phased approach to implementing
SAP across the business that minimised risk of business disruption.
Despite our initial nervousness about using SAP, CIBER Novasoft,
with their strong program management and consultancy skills, have
guided Unwins through the implementation. We are now seeing the
benefits we set out to achieve.”
The Benefits
With the ability to control ranges centrally, Unwins was able to
reduce the stock held in store without affecting sales performance.
To date, the company has seen reductions in store stock of up to
35 per cent.
By gaining greater visibility of their own supply chain processes,
Unwins is now able to hold less stock in the warehouse and ensure
that stock held in stores is in demand by the customer.
It has also been able to enhance the favourable relationship between
store managers and customers through increased availability of information
about local and regional customer purchases.
Richard Rotter attributes this growing success to the SAP implementation
carried out by CIBER Novasoft. Richard concludes, “We are
certain that we will continue to see numerous business benefits
as a result of this highly successful implementation.”
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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