The Wight Salads Group, which has established itself as the largest grower of organic tomatoes in the UK, has found the Technology Services Group’s (TSG) Sage financial solution the answer to all its IT accounting needs.

With a base of around 900 employees, Wight Salads feels technology is the key to modern business. Technological advances have made it possible for Wight Salads to utilise such tools as electronic order receipt and electronic invoicing.

Financial solutions are also key to Wight Salads, and it has used TSG’s Sage Line 100 for a number of years. With the latest developments, it decided to upgrade its Sage Line 100 solution to the latest Sage 200 solution, with the help of TSG.

Wight Salads used Sage Line 100, along with in-house spreadsheets and Foxpro systems, and realised that it could group all of its accounting needs into Sage 200.

“We are a fast-growing company and technology is vital to our day-to- day operations,” said Wight Salads group director of ICT Patrick McCafferty. “We were looking for a solution that would enable us to manage our growth effectively, while keeping a check on costs and improving controls at all levels.”

Wight Salads had been receiving support from TSG on its Sage Line 100 product, and when the time came to upgrade to Sage 200, the company again turned to TSG because of its in-depth knowledge and expertise of the product. One of the key factors presented to Wight Salads was the capability of Sage 200 to transform accounting needs.

Wight Salads implemented Sage 200 to gain a better overview of budgets. The solution enables Wight Salads Group to operate in a multi-currency environment, which is key to its Spanish and Portuguese affiliates. With the Sage 200 solution, Wight Salads has been able to grow a new accounting strategy.

The move from Sage L100 to Sage 200 was made seamless through TSG’s expertise and knowledge of the product. TSG was able to provide training to the staff at Wight Salads, so they could get used to the new accounting software in the transition period.

With the new solution running smoothly, Wight Salads has been able to measure the benefits of the new solution over Sage L100. “We have received major benefits since the implementation,” said McCafferty. “Sage 200 has enabled us to make measurable efficiencies in our production process and in control of costs.”

The new solution has enabled Wight Salads to gain traceability of product through the supply and production chain, as well as measure the production cost of every batch. With the company not only growing its own products but buying some of its stock from growers, Sage 200 has enabled it to gain full control over purchasing.

By utilising the Sage 200 product, Wight Salads has also been able to reduce the amount of paperwork and spreadsheet usage, which is key in such environmentally conscious times.

Following the benefits enjoyed since this successful implementation of Sage 200, Wight Salads is now looking to extend the number of its users operating Sage.

The company is looking to implement Sage Manufacturing when it becomes available, again with the help of TSG.

SCRI WEB MAKEOVER

The Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) is aiming to share its research with more people than ever before with a new, more accessible and user-friendly website.

The site, www.scri.ac.uk, has a brand new look to help bring SCRI’s scientific research to life for members of the general public, as well as scientists and students working in the field.

Visitors to the site can get an insight into SCRI’s plant research through a wide range of photography, representing the many different aspects of the institute’s work, from experiments in the laboratory to field trials and state-of-the-art glasshouses to the Living Field community garden.

There are also new ‘about us’ and ‘frequently asked questions’ sections that provide information and facts about SCRI and its research. The ‘knowledge share’ section tells you more about the establishment’s programme of outreach work, including education, public events and open days and specialised events for growers and industry representatives.

Scientists, students and others with a particular interest can still find in-depth and detailed information about the SCRI’s four science research programmes: Environment Plant Interactions, Genetics, Plant Pathology and Quality and Health and Nutrition.

The research scientists provide details of the many different studies they are working on, and also biography and recent publication details to help users find experts in particular fields.

All the latest SCRI news and events can also be found on the website, keeping users abreast of current developments and opportunities to find out more about the body’s work at open events.

Using the website has never been easier thanks to a new browse-by-audience function, allowing users to select the content most relevant to them, depending on whether they are a farmer, scientist, student or member of the public.

The new site also allows users to register for email bulletins to alert them to the latest news, careers and events, as well as giving their own feedback on the news stories making the headlines by commenting online.

The launch marks the first phase of online development, which aims to make SCRI’s website the first port of call for anyone wanting to find out more about plant and environmental biotechnology.

BI WORK APPLAUDED

Microsoft has announced key milestones achieved within the business intelligence (BI) marketplace, including analyst IDC’s recognition of Microsoft as one of the fastest-growing BI vendors in 2006.

In IDC’s report, Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2006 Vendor Shares, analysts found Microsoft had a growth rate of 28 per cent, the highest among the top 10 industry vendors. Also, Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005 was acknowledged by The OLAP Report as the number-one analytical processing server on the market.

Microsoft will launch Microsoft Office Performance Point 2007 on September 19, and SQL Server 2008 is scheduled to ship in the second quarter of 2008.

CGMA GETS RAMSAC-ED

IT solutions consultancy ramsac has been chosen by the New Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) to manage all of its IT functions.

The decision to outsource IT to ramsac is part of a two-year programme to replace the market’s 30-year-old infrastructure with fresh, modern facilities that deliver an exceptional trading environment for tenants and customers.

ramsac is providing CGMA with ongoing IT support, helpdesk and remote monitoring to immediately identify and resolve issues, network management and IT asset management. At senior management level, an outsourced IT director will assist in the development of its long-term strategy.

The appointment of ramsac comes after a full appraisal of CGMA's business processes, IT usage and requirements. CGMA chief executive Jan Lloyd said: “To deliver and maintain a project of this scale, the skills of a large, corporate in-house IT team were needed. However, we were realistic about the associated resource, cost and headache of financing and managing such a department. The obvious choice was to find a company that could be a trusted outsourcing partner.”

Following an initial appointment for ramsac to undertake an IT audit and system health check, the CGMA was so impressed it decided to outsource all IT development and support to the team. “As we grow, we will work with ramsac to upgrade the IT to further support the organisation as the business needs change,” said Lloyd. “The next step is to assess the use of customer relationship management software and how it could be integrated with our current IT system.”

AT YOUR SERVER - SQL A HIT FOR MICROSOFT

In this month’s column, Anglia Business Solutions’ David Hurley outlines Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and the advantages the system can offer the fresh produce industry in terms of database technology and data replication.

In this month’s article, we take a look at some of the nuts and bolts that make up a totally integrated solution.

While the terminology can be obscure at times, the implications from a business solutions aspect can be quite significant.

At the heart of every business management system is a powerful relational database engine that manages the masses of data generated by the system. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is a database platform for large-scale, online transaction processing, data warehousing and e-commerce applications. It is also a business intelligence platform for data integration, analysis and reporting solutions.

Microsoft SQL Server is fast becoming the market leader in database technology, by winning market share from traditional vendors such as IBM and Oracle. One of SQL Server’s powerful facilities is its ability to replicate data and business logic across multiple servers at various locations. Replication is a set of technologies for the copying and distributing of database objects from one database to another, and then synchronising between databases to maintain consistency.

Using replication, you can distribute data to different locations and to remote or mobile users over local and wide area networks, dial-up connections, wireless connections, and the internet. SQL Server provides three types of replication, each with different capabilities: transactional replication, merge replication, and snapshot replication.

These are briefly described, as follows:

• Transactional: This is new to SQL 2005 and allows incremental changes to be made. It can operate in peer-to-peer mode

• Merge: Allows multiple copies of the database to be merged into a single copy.

• Snapshot: This is a point in time copy of the data.

What these replication facilities offer to the IT department is a number of options that can help to improve and refine their systems.

For example, they can provide improvements in scalability, with offloading of reporting and data extraction from the primary server. This can have a significant impact on the responsiveness of the system, leading to increased user satisfaction.

One of the big issues facing many organisations is what happens in the event of the loss of service from the main company server platform. Replication provides for data availability, with real-time copies of the database in a single location or many alternative locations.

This means that where a company has linked servers at various locations, a disaster recovery plan can be implemented.

In the event of the failure of the main server, the replicated server kicks in and normal service can be resumed.

A further area where replication can help is with a mobile workforce. Typically, this could involve account executives operating with customers using laptops as their main devices.

Information can be gathered on the laptop while on the move, and synchronised when next in touch with the core system using the replication facility.

These are just a few examples of where database replication can have a significant impact on productivity.

As with all technologies, the database continues to evolve. However, the knowledge of how to take advantage of these advances is still a scarce commodity.

In the information age, the lack of awareness of what these new advances can actually offer a company could lead to investments in expensive and complex alternatives.

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