16 BACK OFFICE
BRISTAN MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS BOOST SERVICE LEVELS
version of IFS Applications back in 2003. The original software enabled the kitchen and bathroom products group to streamline its dispatch operations and meet a growing volume of electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions. In order to meet the business’s evolving needs, Bristan Group recently upgraded to IFS Applications 7.5, embracing new functionalities and helping to take its customer service to the next level. Bristan Group guarantees same-day
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dispatch for customers placing orders between 8am and 6pm. “Putting the same-day dispatch commitment into action has always been hugely challenging,” said Lance Gillett, Bristan Group’s chief fi nance offi cer. “As the business grew we consolidated a number of operations and brands; the facilities and systems that previously operated reliably started to reach a point where sheer volume of transactions and operational complexity outstripped their capacity. We needed to revamp Bristan’s IT systems in order to
ristan Group has benefi ted from an integrated business management solution since it implemented an early
guarantee the success of our business model. Key criteria in selecting new systems were longevity and total cost of ownership.” Since then, Bristan Group has built on its
IFS investment. Wes Mason, Bristan Group IT services manager, added: “IFS hadn’t stood still and had continued to develop its offerings. We evaluated version 7.5 of IFS Applications and were impressed with the improved functionality and user-friendly interface that it offered.”
Mason said the improved fl exibility of the
2010 upgrade to IFS Applications 7.5 as an ongoing benefi t for the company: “Following the upgrade, we have explored additional functionality and we are now enjoying the benefi t of making changes more easily ourselves. For instance, the new ‘custom events’ feature enables us to create alerts or force actions when certain values are detected within the system: so if one part of the suite identifi es stock levels are reaching a critical point, the system can automatically trigger reorders. Because we can develop these custom events ourselves, it not only reduces maintenance costs and improves
AGA RANGEMASTER OUTSOURCES NETWORK
Premium kitchen appliances brand AGA Rangemaster has chosen UK on-demand computing and communication services provider Star to deliver its network Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) platform and services. Star will assist in the integration of the Rangemaster and AGA businesses to achieve improved services at reduced costs. The project aims to achieve return on investment in 12 months while service speeds have increased 20-fold and costs have reduced by as much as 40%. AGA Rangemaster is the global parent of some of the world’s best-known kitchen brands such as AGA, La Cornue, Rangemaster, Falcon, Rayburn, Grange and Fired Earth. With an 80-year pedigree, the company has recently been reinvigorated through a series of acquisitions.
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011
Imran Hassan, Head of IT at AGA Rangemaster, explained: “Merging two companies can be an opportunity for a total reassessment of how you do things, giving you the freedom to make some choices that will have real impact and improve the business. IT must add value to business processes rather than focusing on infrastructure issues.
“By appointing Star as our network
services provider, we have been able to outsource the delivery of network infrastructure including fi rewall and VPN [virtual private network]. The consequence has been a vast increase in service availability and performance as well as a huge reduction in service costs, helping my team to concentrate on more strategic technology matters. Star understood what our business was doing and what we are looking to
achieve. It is a service that we can trust, which helped make our decision to partner with Star an easy one.”
cost effi ciency, but also empowers Bristan to improve workfl ow and user effi ciency internally. Ultimately, this enables Bristan to maintain its strict customer dispatch commitments and analyse our ordering process competency more closely.”
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