Poupart reaps the benefits with new IT solution

For a leading fresh produce company like the Poupart Group, ensuring it has the right levels of stock in the right place at the right time is paramount and is an ongoing challenge.

The seasonal variations and limited shelf-life of fruit, such as raspberries and strawberries, makes the job of accurate forecasting inherently difficult.

In addition, ensuring its customers’ standards, in respect of food quality and value, are met is critical.

The ability to access and utilise reliable and accurate information for effective sales, regular stock and promotional planning are all key aspects to Poupart’s business.

For both the summer and winter seasons, as well as integration between those seasons, Poupart’s buyers need to understand what fruit will be available from each of the company’s growers. They need to understand this by season, by week and then by day, as the seasons progress. It is only by having this up-to-date and accurate information that Poupart can promise its customers, who include the UK’s biggest supermarkets, what produce they will receive and when.

These forecasts used to arrive at Poupart’s offices in a number of ways, including email, fax and telephone, depending on how technology savvy the grower was. Poupart staff members would then key this information into the forecasting systems, in order to meet the demands of the customers. The problem was the growers did not always send the information, faxes and emails got lost, and sometimes errors were made re-keying the data.

To complicate the supply chain further, fruit arriving from overseas is often sent to another third party - a packhouse. Poupart does not own the packhouse; it has no access to its systems, so it is difficult to know exactly what is in stock at any given point in time. Managing the variable demands of Poupart’s customers, along with the packhouse demands for operational planning is a constant difficulty.

Supplying fresh fruit is only one part of the service provided to its customers, the other is assisting each customer to increase its sales and profits. Category management achieves this through reliable and accurate information which can be readily interpreted.

However, due to the different systems utilised, this was complicated and slow to achieve. Poupart’s IT systems were based around a Unix server with terminal emulation, for finance and sales order processing.

Other business processing, such as forecasting, stock planning, promotion planning and market share analysis were done on a mixture of different systems: Microsoft Access databases and Excel spreadsheets.

Robin Dawson, finance director with the Poupart Group, says: “The fundamental nature of our business is information - managing the information throughout our business to ensure we meet customer and supplier requirements.

“Our IT system was unwieldy, making it difficult to get access to the information. With a number of people re-keying data to give us the information we needed, both time and accuracy became a primary concern. Given the fact we base strategic business decisions on this information, we knew we had to review our internal processes and resolve the issues we had with our IT system,” he says.

“Poupart, like many organisations today, faces real business issues that can impact operations,” says Orlando Ayala, senior vice-president at Microsoft. “As leaders in its industry, Poupart recognised that technology could address these issues and give it a competitive advantage. It brought in a skilled partner, Tectura, to help it take its business to the next level.

“Microsoft, together with our partners, offers businesses end-to-end integrated solutions that allow them to focus on better serving their customers, better managing supplier relationships and doing business better overall,” he adds.

In 2003, Poupart examined the marketplace for alternative solutions, covering industry specific suppliers as well as global players, such as SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. Knowing it wanted a long-term solution, financial standing of the software vendor was of paramount importance.

It soon became clear that the solution which best met its requirements was Microsoft Business Solutions’ Navision. The partner Poupart chose to work with on the entire project was Tectura, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Microsoft’s Global Partner of the Year.

“The criteria we based our decision on was financial standing, flexibility, scalability, competence and how well we got on with them,” says Matthew Butlin, Poupart’s IT manager and project manager. “The combination of Microsoft and Tectura ticked the right boxes. Microsoft sees this as a strategic area for investment, while also ensuring strong integration with the rest of our IT infrastructure.

“Tectura were simply head and shoulders above the rest. They had an excellent methodology and discipline, and were clearly the industry experts, with a dedicated focus on Microsoft Navision,” he says.

The new system has Navision at the heart of the solution, and other key elements include Microsoft Biztalk 2002, Microsoft Commerce Gateway and Microsoft SQL Report Server, which involved B2B integration, using EDI with the supermarkets, and XML with the suppliers.

A web server was also developed which used Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft Report Server and Microsoft Internet Information Server.

The solution also allowed integration with other Microsoft technologies already being used at Poupart including Office 2000 and Windows XP among others.

The project was company-wide, involving 80 users across finance, sales and marketing, category management, technical, operations and purchasing. In addition, the project involved the automatic exchange of data with the supermarkets using EDI, and with the packhouses and growers, via the web.

This involved moving Poupart away from multiple systems and databases to the new, integrated solution, helping to standardise business processes across the group. The project was delivered on time and within budget.

Darren Gadd, project manager at Tectura, says: “Our policy is to deliver as expediently as possible so the customer can realise the benefits of the new system as soon as possible.

“We took a phased project approach and focused on resolving any problems as they arose, to cause as little disruption as possible. We see these as critical components of a successful implementation.”

Poupart says it has seen a number of positive benefits since the system went live in September 2004. The growers are now using the web to place their seasonal, weekly and daily forecasts. This data is fed, using XML, directly into Navision’s forecasting software, developed by Tectura, so that Poupart’s buyers know, to the day, exactly what each grower is forecasting. There is no longer a need to pay people to re-key data and the inevitable re-keying errors have been eliminated.

Using Biztalk, the company can now see the exact stock situation at each packhouse. Once the stock has been accessed, a shipment order is instantly available to the packhouse. Using the new system, they can monitor exactly what stock was shipped and if any was returned, enabling Poupart to plan more accurately and provide a far superior service to the supermarkets. In fact, the system is now providing complete tracking and traceability of all products.

Poupart’s business is based on trust and confidence - growers want to know they can entrust their goods to Poupart to sell on their behalf and customers, often the major supermarkets, expect Poupart to deliver the right quantity of quality fresh produce, when they want it.

With the new system, the company can now supply the information to demonstrate it meets those demands. In an industry which works by word of mouth, guaranteeing service can be a ticket to attracting new sellers and buyers, which in turn will increase revenue.

Poupart’s Dawson says: “Our turnover has increased by 45 per cent in the quarter to the end of February 2005, with 10 per cent less staff.

“The staff reduction is temporary, but it did apply to the whole period.

“Had we had our old system we would not have coped, although that’s not to say it hasn’t been a stretch. The increase is not a value increase; prices, if anything, have gone down, and being a trading company the increase in transactional volumes applies to both sales and purchases.

“Our total business is dependent on our computer system. We made this investment for the future, to safeguard our business.”

PMA LAUNCHES NEW SOFTWARE

IT users throughout the UK have long been calling for a simple method of standardising the data that flows between companies throughout the entire supply chain.

However, there is a potential solution now on the horizon. The US fresh produce industry can now speak the same language thanks to ASAP: Produce, a groundbreaking new data standardisation product from the Produce Marketing Association (PMA).

ASAP: Produce is PMA’s newest web-based database product that represents the first standard data catalouge for the produce industry. ASAP stands for A Standardised Attributes Product.

Bryan Silbermann, PMA president, explained that the standardised data available through ASAP: Produce will help the industry in a number of different ways:

• It allows the first steps towards enabling trading partners to synchronise data between trading partners

• It enables the use of technologies such as radio frequency identification

• It features full compliance with traceability guidelines

• Companies will be able to use the softward to reap the benefits of category management

• It can facilitate the marketing, selling, and purchasing of produce at the case and pallet level

• It also avoids the costly ramifications of bad data that result in mis-shipments, invoice deductions, problems with inventory management, and strained customer relations.

“Foodlink Online and iTrade Network, representing over 80 per cent of the leading retailers and suppliers, are among the first to subscribe to ASAP: Produce,” said Gary Fleming, PMA vice president of industry technology and standards.

“ASAP: Produce will not only enable traceability and category management, but it is also a critical first step to efficiently using the Global Data Synchronisation Network,” he added.

Bruce Peterson, senior vice president of perishables with US giant Wal-Mart, said: “Data synchronisation has been identified as the critical bridge to allowing both traceability and RFID to cross into the industry mainstream.

“Without data standardisation first, you can’t get there from here. I commend PMA’s industry leadership by developing this critical first link that has been missing.”

SUPERVALU’s vice-president of produce/floral, Gary Gionette, said: “As a partner with PMA in developing this product, SUPERVALU testing results showed a 50 per cent reduction in our purchase ordering process costs. With the release of ASAP: Produce, this is the kind of savings potential that could be possible for industry members up and down the supply chain.”

MICROSOFT POWERS ON

It is fair to say that the move by Microsoft into the fresh produce sector has caused quite a stir in the industry.

However, it is evident from the questions that I frequently get asked that few people understand what is behind its thinking. In this article, I hope to throw some light on the subject. Two weeks ago in Minneapolis at its Worldwide Partner Conference, the company revealed its strategy for the next 12 months. The conclusions make interesting reading.

Microsoft is now the largest and most successful software company in the world. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide use its products on a daily basis to run their business processes. The sheer scale of its current global operations is staggering. However, there is still a very strong hunger for growth within the company. This year for example, the company will spend a massive $6.5 billion in R&D to improve its product range and produce new software technologies.

The company now dominates the information workers market with its hugely successful Microsoft Office suite.

Its Windows technologies are the most widely used server and desktop operating systems in the world. In the database market, the SQL Server product has dislodged Oracle as the number one solution. Recently, its .NET framework has become the most widely adopted application development toolset by developers worldwide. However, it is the move into the highly fragmented mid-range business management solutions market that has shaken the foundations of this rapidly growing sector.

Microsoft has invested £2.5bn in acquiring Great Plains and Navision, both leading mid-market suppliers of business management systems.

Great Plains has a strong presence in the US and Navision is the dominant player in Europe. The acquisition provided the company with powerful Windows-based business solutions with significant future potential. More importantly it also supplied the company with access to 6,000 skilled deployment partners in over 130 countries. As a company that only supplies products through its partner channels, this was an important factor, giving Microsoft a significant edge over the competition.

The initiatives announced in Minneapolis on how Microsoft intends to increase its market share in this sector are based on extensive research on the needs of mid-market organisations. This revealed that such organisations seek cost-effective, rapidly deployed, industry-specific solutions, targeted at the key business drivers of the company. Furthermore, the solutions would ideally be delivered by a deployment partner, willing to take responsibility for the complete solution. The days of two to five-year implementations costing a fortune and with ill-defined returns on investment are over.

In order to meet these needs, Microsoft encouraged its partner community to specialise in industry specific applications.

Its research indicated that, in future, companies would only engage with partners with an in-depth understanding of the industries they service. Furthermore, the partners were encouraged to invest in packaging the solutions as a means of facilitating rapid implementation cycles. Having one or two opportunistic sales in a sector would no longer qualify as a vertical offering in the eyes of the client.

Two further notable trends also emerged from the event. The importance of understanding the entire range of Microsoft infrastructure products (“the Microsoft Stack”) was stressed. Without these skills, it would become increasingly difficult to deliver complete solutions. The second was the emergence of a significant demand for mobile business information. Microsoft has made major investments in this space and needs its partners to gain the knowledge required to deploy such systems.

To broadcast partners’ industry specific skills, Microsoft will enable a vertical industry website early in 2006. This will be released to companies seeking partners with the pre-requisite industry expertise. It will also release a catalogue of approved packaged applications that have been vetted for compliance with Microsoft standards. In addition, Microsoft has pledged a massive investment in partner marketing funds to increase sector awareness.

In conclusion, Microsoft has successfully made some big bets in the past (Windows, Microsoft Office, MS SQL and .NET to mention just a few). The company is now committed to achieving market leadership in the business-solutions sector. It is prepared to invest significantly to achieve this. For example Microsoft’s R&D investment in Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) in 2005 is $2bn. This is more than the turnover of many of its competitors. The strategy on industry specialisation with packaged offerings is a new initiative designed to increase client satisfaction with its systems. The message to its partners is to specialise while broadening its skill set to deliver the total solutions that customers need.

Hopefully, this will provide FPJ readers with a brief overview of Microsoft’s future strategy. Those looking for more can take part in a special fresh produce focused event on September 29, at Microsoft’s UK headquarters in Reading.

A FRESH IT LINK

Lincolnshire Field Products has signed up Anglia Business Solutions to deliver its IT solutions.

LFP has selected Anglia’s Microsoft Navision based LinkFresh System, which will replace the company’s existing Unix-based solution.

Paul Witherington, LFP’s IT manager, said: “The replacement of our core business system is necessary to support the continued expansion plans of our business.

“For that reason, we have invested considerable time in assessing the various options on the market. We have selected Anglia as a partner to work with due to its extensive knowledge of the fresh produce sector. Its commitment to the industry has been demonstrated by the concepts incorporated into the LinkFresh package.

“Once deployed, this should provide us with a competitive advantage in meeting the future demands of our customers,” he added.

The new solution involves the deployment of the LinkFresh suite powered by Microsoft Business Solutions Navision Version 4 ERP system. The system will handle all of the financial, stock, supply chain, HR, assets and logistical needs of the business in one central, fully integrated and easy to use solution.

Commenting on the acquisition of the contract, Bob Rose, Anglia’s fresh produce business development manager, said: “We are very pleased to work with a high profile company of LFP’s standing on this project.

“The implementation of a LinkFresh state-of-the-art solution will provide it with a significant aid to its productivity. Once deployed, the solution will provide the company with a ‘one version of truth’ business management information system.

“In addition using a combination of Microsoft Navision, LinkFresh and .NET functionality, LFP will be able to further enhance its supply chain capabilities by sharing this information between customers and supply partners.”

••••

RUBICON SOLUTION: A software supplier, aimed primarily at the fresh produce and flower sector, has launched its latest software solution.

Rubicon Computer Systems said its system offers significant advances to new and existing customers, as well as a host of new features. A spokesman for the company said: “The design of Rubicon’s software and supporting technologies has been developed for the industry from the ground up and is therefore feature-rich in supporting unique requirements of this sector.

“Developed using Rubicon’s own database-independent technology, the product may be run on a variety of platforms, offering choice of both relational database and environment.

“The new client interface, which takes full advantage of the rich functionality of Microsoft VB.Net, stays the same, regardless of deployment platform.”

Encompassed within Rubicon’s solutions are the use of web-based facilities, radio data systems, mobile computing and touchscreens for managing data throughout the trading cycle.