C&J Marine says subscription ERP means plain sailing

The Chichester, West Sussex based company says, however, that getting this right meant delaying go-live to accommodate significant business process reshaping. "Getting the server ready and installing 123insight only took a couple of days. Then we realised that we had to take a fresh look at the business," states operations manager Wayne Strickland. "We had 20 years of data to migrate, covering customers, parts, BoMs etc, but this gave us the opportunity to spring clean the data. We devised a coding system so that we could instantly recognise criteria from the part number... This approach has been used right across the company ... providing full traceability across the board," he explains. That done, Strickland says shopfloor data capture provided instant benefits: C&J can now see if a product is stalling during production. It can also report on cost of manufacture and lead times – which has led to a 5% improvement, due to better communication between sales and production via 123insight's CRM. "We are being much more efficient in the way we do business," he explains. "With the CRM/MRP link, our production team can advise sales if there is a window of availability within production in the future, so they have the opportunity to fill it." Indeed, Strickland says that CRM has provided benefits business wide: "It's changed the way we support customers. Previously, we had customer and boat details in separate databases, but no way to record notes or conversations, or to associate drawings or emails. With CRM, we now have a process where all customer conversations are recorded." And it's a similar story with marketing, which now uses 123Insight's equipment register to group customers into geographic zones. "When we attend local shows we can now easily send an email to all customers that keep their boats in a given area," comments Strickland. Stock also reduced by 5%, in line with better forecasting and the direct interface between 123insight and C&J's Sage accounting software – which has also cut duplicated data entry errors. Next up, according to Strickland will be a new e-commerce system, interfacing directly with 123insight using its SDK (software development kit). That, he says, will be linked to new product ranges currently being developed for different markets. "If you compare 123insight with the traditional way of selecting an ERP/MRP system, you'll get a much quicker ROI than spending tens of thousands up-front, followed by thousands per year for ongoing support," says Strickland. "You just need to do the maths. If a company is looking to integrate all of their business systems then 123insight will do it. It will integrate all of your business processes, and that is fundamental in my opinion."