Zwetsloots

Why Zwetsloots thinks IFS is the pick of the bunch

Business is booming for Zwetsloots of Sandy, Bedfordshire.  The business has seen its turnover blossom from £10m to £50m in fewer than 10 years, and it needed an IT system that has the flexibility to cope with the unique demands of the horticultural industry.

Zwetsloots supplies cut flower bouquets to the multiple and supermarket retail sector and boasts major retail multiples such as Tesco, Safeway and The Co-op amongst its main clients.  Established in 1932 by Dutchman Cornelius Zwetsloots to deliver flowers and vegetables, the company’s corporate strategy has helped to make it the UK’s market leader in cut flower supply.

The problem

Flexibility and an eagerness to adapt have ensured that Zwetsloots has become synonymous with quality, reliability, service and value.  The company realises that each order is a contract of trust with the customer, especially with major international retailers that demand quality cut flowers every day of the year.  Retailers use Zwetsloots because every delivery will be of a consistently high standard.

Despite the majority of Zwetsloots’ goods being imported from many different continents, the time taken from receiving flowers from suppliers to customer delivery can be under six hours.  As such, the ability to enter data in real time and have up-to-date information is crucial to business operations.  It also means being able to cope with an incredible amount of variants and with rapid and regular change.

Zwetsloots’ problem was that it had outgrown the IT infrastructure that had served it so well since the late eighties.  Its previous system was based around a semi-integrated package developed by a small software house which managed Zwetsloots’ accounting, sales analysis, sales order processing, stock control and distribution.  Since its installation, this system had been substantially modified to meet Zwetsloots’ ever-changing requirements, with the company also heavily dependent on the one software house for all its maintenance and upgrades.

There were many other systems in use within the company to handle the processing side of the business, but none of them were integrated. For example, Zwetsloots employed standalone systems for forecasting, personnel, time and attendance, BACS, reporting, and communicating with the customers through electronic data exchange (EDI).

Not only were the various systems incapable of talking to each other, but the whole structure was struggling to cope with Zwetsloots’ rapid change and growth, as its business developed from a flower nursery grower/wholesaler to a flower bouquet processor.  The gaps in the integration process meant that a significant amount of data needed to be entered more than once into different systems.  There was no guarantee that the information available was up-to-date and accurate.  In addition, the old software was proving vulnerable during the peak trading periods of Christmas, Valentines, Mother’s Day and Easter, when output can increase by up to 300 per cent.

The solution

At Zwetsloots, IT systems were traditionally driven by financial and accounting requirements.  However, when it came to considering options for a new system, Finance Director and project sponsor, Geoff Savage, saw the potential for a fully-integrated system in which every aspect of the business fed into management reporting.  In short, a system that established financial control throughout the business.

“It’s essentially an assembly environment here” says Geoff Savage, “and we certainly have a lot of components and parts.  However the aspect that differentiates us from manufacturing also presents the main problem – that we are dealing with a short life span product and the parts and specifications can and do change rapidly according to customer needs.  We’ve had hundreds of specification changes in the last six months, ranging from a component change (flower substitution), a sales price change, a standard cost change, a retail price change, a bar code change or a special promotion.  All these need to be dealt with instantaneously.”

Another crucial factor for Zwetsloots is ensuring successful communication with its partners, most importantly suppliers, customers and employees.  This has become even more pertinent as the company is now a multimillion pound operation capable of assuming total crop ownership with many of its suppliers.  Management of the total supply chain is crucial.

Says Geoff Savage: “When we started to consider replacing the old system, we realised that horticulture presents its own challenges when compared to a typical fresh produce environment.  Within Zwetsloots, there remains a focus on flexibility, but as our business grew it was clear that we needed more control.  We wanted a system that offered us precise tracking of every component of every line, from producer to customer.”

After spending six months producing an extremely detailed invitation to tender (ITT), Zwetsloots looked at around 20 suppliers of IT systems.  A further 18 months later, the company had narrowed this down to one.  So why was IFS chosen?

“Because the ITT was so detailed,” says Geoff Savage, “we got a good feel for which suppliers were the best.  As for the system, we certainly didn’t want anything bespoke.  IFS stood out as an excellent off-the-shelf system that did what we wanted, and the decision among our selection team was unanimous.  The main features that attracted everyone were its excellent query report functionality and the ability to drill down and move around the system very quickly.  This was important to us and the entire team bought into it.”

Geoff Savage continues: “We went through a number of years with a legacy system and had to cope with poor reporting tools and a lack of real time data.  The business still functioned and we still made money but growth is one thing, control is something else.  There simply wasn’t the ability to identify a problem.  We would supply and meet customer’s expectations in delivery but much of it was accomplished with off-line spreadsheets, and in some instances a calculator and a piece of paper.  With a supply chain as fast as ours you need to be able to communicate equally fast, and that’s what IFS gave us.”

Implementation

Like any IT system, there were some initial teething problems when the IFS system was first installed, but to a large extent this is because Zwetsloots chose a ‘big bang’ installation, putting in around 80% of the entire IFS system in just six months.  Whereas most businesses might choose to take a phased approach, Zwetsloots decided that it would switch over to the new system literally overnight – and just prior to one of its major trading peaks.

“It comes back to speed of management information” says Geoff Savage.  “You can’t have an integrated system, put bits and pieces of it in and then expect integrated real time data capture from day one.  The decision was made to ensure commitment, and external support existed for the core team during a six month implementation programme.  Six months is a very short time to do that and the business owes a debt to the in-house implementation team and the support of the IFS consultants in ensuring that the tight implementation plan was met.  The initial target was to set a new IT platform for the business to build on and the whole operation went much better than I had dared to hope.”

“We also went live with a new barcoding system simultaneously, and we had two weeks prior to a peak to get our processes up and running.  Of course that hurt and there were some processes that didn’t run as smoothly as we would have liked.  However I must say that any problem we had was fixed in two days, and the IFS consultants were here until the early hours of the morning if necessary, so there was real on-the-ground support.”

“Most important of all, Zwetsloots customers didn’t notice a dip in service during the implementation phase whereas the suppliers were aware of a difference.  IFS immediately enabled a proactive approach to supplier management.”

Benefits

For Zwetsloots, the main benefit of installing the IFS system has been increased control.  If a company is able to manage its supply chain effectively, it will reduce waste, reduce costs and increase efficiency whilst also enabling it to plan ahead.  Furthermore, since the implementation of IFS, management of the peak trading periods has improved considerably due to the improved control and anticipation forecast models.

“You have to understand that we had never had real-time management reporting before” says Geoff Savage.  “We used to have lengthy accounts reports on dot matrix computer paper with staff using calculators and spreadsheets to eventually produce an end report.  The IFS system does this procedure quickly and easily.  With the old system, we couldn’t immediately analyse anything and it was hard to get our teeth into any kind of management information.  You can’t make decisions without measurement and now this is quickly and easily achieved.  If we are not performing well in a particular area we can identify it and focus improvement.  The material resource planning (MRP) side of the system and the whole supply chain section works well, but forecasting is key.  Due to the dynamics of this industry, if your forecast is out by 30 per cent on one day and you have a constant supply every two days, at some stage you’re going to be short of stock or have too much.  The IFS forecasting package manages this requirement.  Reduced waste is measurable and it is much better week on week.”

Because of the sheer size of the IFS system and its vast capabilities, the Zwetsloots team understands that many benefits have still to be realised and that the implementation of IFS will be on-going as the business expands.  For example, while the system has not markedly affected the standard of service provided to customers, there is recognition within Zwetsloots that there is certainly potential to improve this.  Whether it involves new product development, tracking, quoting, using the sales and marketing package or other elements of the system, there is plenty of scope for greater efficiency.

Geoff Savage concludes: “In the future, we’ll have more knowledge at our disposal, and we’ll be able to offer our customers a better service.  There is potential for much better efficiency if we manage it correctly, but the system won’t do it for you.  It simply reflects what’s happening at any given time and that’s exactly what it should do.  To a certain extent you can see where you’re going, and where you’re going to go wrong, before it happens.  Greater pro-activity and control are what IFS has given us.”