A software solution for a leading Hamilton manufacturer has freed up staff.
When Global Velocity Group investigated streamlining the sales process it came down to either hiring more staff or commissioning specialist software.
“Our administrator was pushed. They were at their limit,” said Global Velocity Group director Allister Gillam.
Global Velocity Group specializes in the manufacture of more than 900,000 branded garments, bags, and accessories for many leading Australasian brands each year. It also does contract manufacturing for various external brands and has its own in-house brands like Huntech, Velocity, and Nodoff.
“We were taking orders from our customer by phone, fax, and email, then manually processing these. It was labor-intensive. The question for us was whether we should get a part-time staff member or look at a technical solution.”
Global Velocity Group managing director David Icke sought trusted advice from software specialist Company-X director David Hallett, who he had previously done business with.
“We wanted to put some technology in to make our sales process operation much more efficient,” Icke said.
They had decided upon using the MYOB EXO ERP business management solution.
Before buying the solution they asked Company-X if its developers could design and build a solution that would integrate with it.
“We looked at many options and decided that MYOB EXO ERP was the best solution for our business. Once that decision was made we just went to David Hallett and said that this was what we were looking at doing.”
Company-X analyst developer Schalk Bower then visited the Global Velocity Group at its Te Rapa, Hamilton, office, and analyzed the software needs of the business.
“We were replacing a manual system which consisted of filling out a long-form and then having to ring up GlobalVelocity to check on stock levels,” Bower said. “It was important for us to deliver a system which gave a pleasant, frictionless, seamless user experience to reduce inefficiencies that came from having a manual system and to encourage sales.”
Bower was tasked with developing a web-based sales order portal for retailers which worked on both desktop computers and mobile devices. It would pass sales orders on to MYOB EXO for processing by Global Velocity Group’s warehouse staff.
“Schalk came down and met with us on site. It was really productive. After that first meeting, we had 90 per cent of it right.”
With the Agile Software Development Manifesto front of mind, Bower quickly developed an early working version of the tool. It became the starting point for later iterations that emerged as the project matured.
Retailers log into the new system and start on a landing page unique to them as a user. Colour coding helps them understand, at a glance, how many individual items of a certain line are available,
“Green means there’s more than 20, orange means there’s less than 20, and red means we are out of stock,” Gillam said.
If the user tried to order more individual items that are available in the warehouse the system automatically creates a backorder which is sent to Global Velocity’s factory.
Gillam expected less than half of Global Velocity Group’s customers to embrace the change. But adoption has been much higher.
“Our admin staff work 8am to 4pm Monday to Friday, but the new software is available all the time, so if the retailer is in the office at 6am or 7pm, or at the weekends, they can put an order through. It’s taken all the pressure of our administration staff,” Gillam said.