Greentree sparks sales growth at Vynco Industries

Business situation

Bucking the increasingly global trend of sourcing and importing products from China, Vynco Industries is a New Zealand-based company focused on designing, engineering and manufacturing electrical products in New Zealand. The company also maintains around 7,000 inventory items, some with long 90-day lead times which require pinpoint-accurate tracking and management to ensure stock is always on hand. The functionality available in the 15-year-old CBA system had been outgrown, and it lacked the capacity to scale in order to meet the company’s future growth requirements. Any system upgrade needed to enhance the company’s ability to continue to attract and retain distribution agreements with high-profile international brands such as General Electric.

Greentree was evaluated alongside its similarly positioned mid-market competitors including Microsoft Dynamics NV (Navision) and Dynamics GP (Great Plains), plus Sage. Simon Vale, General Manager, says “Greentree had two distinct advantages in terms of its price and functionality, which were simply superior.”

Greentree IQ* helps management keep fingers on sales pulse

More than just a reporting tool, Greentree IQ* allows management to look at anomalies and trends in sales data, providing strategic insights for better quality decision-making. Simon advocates the Greentree IQ* value. “This is a fantastic tool, which we use primarily for sales reporting, but it’s so much more than just a reporting tool. For example, we use it for tracking our customer communication performance and various inventory applications. By tracking, monitoring and reporting various sales-related activities, management has a much clearer overall picture of exactly what’s going on.”

Approvals and Alerts leaveS nothing to chance

Whilst Greentree IQ* monitors communication performance, Approvals and Alerts sends information to the appropriate person’s desktop to notify them that a customer call needs to be followed up now.

Approvals and Alerts is also invaluable for notifying the appropriate person when stock falls below a certain level, is sold below a certain margin, or a sale is above a certain value. With 90-day lead times on some stock items, running out of stock isn’t an option.

Simon is clear that Approvals and Alerts has enabled Vynco to automatically manage business processes by getting critical information to the right person at exactly the right time. The key benefits are that sales aren’t lost due to items being out of stock or customer calls not being followed up.

Workflow improvements

Greentree’s Workflow module allows the personalisation of the user’s desktop so that each person only gets the information most relevant to them. Information is automatically refreshed and pushed to the appropriate desktop, where it prompts for specific action to be taken. This has significantly improved staff productivity and efficiency.

Best practice

Simon explains that Greentree has enabled Vynco to implement best practice in critical business processes. For example, instead of new or inexperienced staff having to spend a lot of time remembering the physical location of stock or where it has been moved to, Greentree allocates and tracks its exact location. This has made order picking more accessible to all staff, not just those with years of experience. Order picking staff now get up to speed much quicker than was previously the case.

Future plans – Autoscan, Mobility & BPM

Simon is now looking at how to achieve greater document management efficiency through Autoscan, and faster, more accurate inventory management and order picking through the introduction of hand-held devices and Mobility. He’s also looking to explore and understand the opportunities for greater organisational performance through Business Process Management (BPM).

“I’d give Greentree a 9/10 rating at the moment, but with each new version upgrade we’re ticking even more of the customer satisfaction boxes.”