XpressFish Case study
~ Monday, 19th December 2011.What a great catch for Marda Associates
Background
XpressFish is a friendly family owned independent business with a wealth of experience in the seafish industry. They import frozen seafood products directly from Iceland and the Faroe Islands, specialising in frozen at sea fish for the UK fish & chip market and IQF fillets for the catering industry.
Their partnership with trawler owners ensures continuous supply of the finest quality Iclandic cod and haddock direct to the door. XpressFish also have direct supply from the North Atlantic, offering superb quality individually frozen cod and haddock fillets.
Ethical trading
Ethical trading is at the heart of XpressFish’ ethos. They understand the importance of a reliable service and a key factor in their success is their ability to provide a continuous supply of the finest quality products available, including skinless and boneless fish fillets.
The crystal clear waters of the North Atlantic are renowned for their rich harvest of the very finest quality fish which is shipped through the Humber ports direct to customers via their own transport network.
For additional information relating to XpressFish please visit their website: www.xpressfish.net
The Problem
To assist XpressFish with improving efficiency and improving the streamlining of their business processes, XpressFish required an office and delivery solution to effectively manage their business and provide more in-depth analysis, ease of ordering for their customers and speed of processing of paperwork.
Simon Tomlinson, Managing Director at XpressFish, explains:
'We were using an array of different documents to manage our office and delivery schedules. These provided us with the basic information we needed but we were limited as to what we could do with the information. We needed to take the business to the next stage and to do this we decided to invest in a solution that enabled us to manage our sales process.'
The main issue identified was the significant amount of time that was being spent using Excel spreadsheets and having disparate sources of information that was held in various locations. This caused concern as this system was prone to errors. Their key objective was to consolidate all information into one central repository, speed up the processing of paperwork – namely, picking lists and batch summaries and generally improve the efficiency of the business from initial enquiry through to despatch of orders.
Simon Tomlinson continued:
'The team at Marda worked with us to identify what features we required. They recommended MA Order Man and it has added a new dimension to our team!'
Key functionality
- The software works with specific van rounds and batches.
- The paperwork for XpressFish drivers, warehouse staff, pickers and loaders is generated automatically.
- Customer orders and preferences are made mandatory to enable ease of ordering for XpressFish’ customers.
- Sales history, unique customer prices is made available to the sales team at the click of a button.
- XpressFish’ sales team has the ability to create a new set of sales orders based on history and preferences from previous orders. This helps the team to differentiate between stock and make to order items and produces a pre-order report for the manufacturing team.
- Stock sales reports enable the forecasting team to help assess orders for production.
- When the round is complete, sales details are posted automatically into the individual ledger accounts in Sage 50.
- The software solution has a variety of tailor made reports for XpressFish’ senior management team.
The Solution
MA Order Man is one of the most user friendly solutions available on the market today and it has been developed by our in-house development team. The solution is very user friendly and has been modelled on the Windows® front end look and feel and back end SQL database.
The main benefits enjoyed by XpressFish are the ease of ordering their customers experience, the new solution also avoids data duplication whilst improving efficiency and effectiveness.
The Benefits
The main benefits from the solution implemented for XpressFish are:
- Increased productivity from not having to duplicate data entry
- Reduced costs due to the time savings - equating to one administration persons full time salary.
- The ability to segment, target and analyse information at Board and user level.
The impact that ‘MA Order Man’ has had on XpressFish’ business are as follows:
- One central repository for all their information instead of disparate sources of information – this has realised significant cost savings.
- Data duplication has been negated as ‘MA Order Man’ has consolidated all disparate sources of information into one central system.
- Sales teams can access details on their customers, their account status, their order status at the press of a button, saving time and money.
For more information about how to become an MA Order Man Business Partner, or how to find out how your business can benefit from MA Order Man please call 01633 254000 or email ma@marda.com