Providing independent business systems advice to distribution companies
Centaur Services Limited
www.centaur-services.ltd.uk
CSL supplies wholesale veterinary products to members of the veterinary profession. The main operations and warehouse is located in Castle Cary, Somerset. Existing computer systems were based on SAP using an Oracle database running on a Microsoft environment. Although there were no major problems with SAP it was expensive to run and administer and CSL wished to explore whether there were any lower cost application solutions which could support their business operations.
Documentation of key requirements and production of a statement of requirements document. Evaluation of potential alternative solutions against statement of requirements.
Scale
£105m turnover,
8,000 product lines, 5,000 sales orders per week, 225+ employees
Scope of requirements
Sales order processing, stock control, purchasing, warehouse management, distribution, financial ledgers, sales and marketing
Existing systems were not fully integrated
Extracting data was cumbersome
An unsupported version of SAP was being used
Excessive use of spreadsheets to meet requirements, due to failure to implement all available SAP functionality
Difficulties in finding appropriate external support
A number of in-house developed bespoke add-ons had been made to the SAP solution
An expression of interest (EOI) document
was issued to a long list of suppliers of appropriate solutions and
following brief demonstrations a list of potential suppliers was
established. In parallel user requirements were documented in the form
of a statement of requirements (SOR), which was issued to the potential
suppliers.
Supplier proposals were evaluated and favoured solutions short-listed for
further investigation. Detailed demonstrations
were attended and after an extensive assessment of the options and
comparison of capital and running costs a way forward was established.
“What
impressed me from the start was the immediate rapport established with the
Microguide team. The down to earth pragmatic approach was a breath of
fresh air. We particularly valued their disciplined approach to systems
specification and selection. We did not have the time or market knowledge
to do all the research ourselves, Microguide gave us the extra hands we
needed”
Nick
Weaving
, IT Manager
Microguide Corporate Computer Consultants, 82 Shortlands Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, KT2 6HE
Tel: 020 8549 7152
Fax: 020 8549 8112
Email:enquiry@microguide.co.uk
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