Customers

Case Study - Christys

Have you heard the one about the clothing company that bought a new, all singing, all dancing computer system to support its already successful and fast growing business and one year later was saying it's one of the best things that ever happened to them.

Don't believe it? The clothing company is Christy & Co, who supply many High Street retailers including Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Woolworth, Debenhams, Littlewoods, Argos and George. The systems provider is clothing and footwear specialist Prima Solutions.

 

Traditionally, the business at Christy has been the provision of high quality headwear, but in recent years the Barnsley-based company, which now has an annual turnover in excess of £25m, has been responsible for the growth in role play costumes for children. In addition, Christy, like many other UK manufacturers, has moved almost all of its production overseas during the last few years which, of course, has had a significant impact on the way they work.

Although part of Christys' product range is very traditional, the culture within the company is contemporary. Its people are very focused on meeting the demands of an increasingly demanding customer base and the product range has continued to grow in volume, width and complexity. Reported turnover was forecast to grow by 50% in 2002/3 and there were no plans to significantly expand the work force. They simply had to focus on getting the right processes in place with a high quality system to support them in order to secure success.

Andy James, Finance Director at Christys', tells the story.
"When our turnover reached £15m our existing systems began to 'creak', and we realised there were inefficiencies in our processes. With significant growth and a changing supply chain model as our drivers, we had to get slicker in our approach and it became obvious that a modern, fully integrated computer system was essential."

"We conducted an extensive appraisal of systems and that's when we started working with Prima Solutions," says Andy. "We chose them because the software had been demonstrated to provide a perfect fit and because of the excellent reputation they have with existing customers for high quality implementation."

A Real Working Partnership

"To start with the people at Prima Solutions understand our industry, the complexity of apparel processes and the management of Far East factories. They have proved to be experts in their field - not only do they know the industry but all the individuals know the software incredibly well. They quickly, and apparently easily, picked up how we operate and because they have so much experience, were able to answer all our questions so that we had a superbly working system in next to no time."

"We feel the business partnership approach, so strongly promoted by Prima, has been vital in achieving our 'go live' date. Any business knows that you don't contract with a supplier unless the product is right; in this case it was the software that we were going to invest in. But not everyone realises the benefits of working in 'true' partnership with your suppliers. We have quickly become close to the people at Prima Solutions and both companies are gaining from this relationship."

Tighter Control


Prima Solutions' Financials software was first to be implemented. The software supports the entire management of accounts from sales, purchase and nominal ledgers to management accounting. It was a vital first phase in the implementation. It was simple to take on, and taking the raw, transactional data from Sage to Prima was easy. It has enabled Christys' to gain a tighter control over costs and has aided improvements in cash flow.

Once the Financials were up and running, the Order Management module quickly followed. Orders used to be handled through a manual process until ready for invoicing when the order would be entered onto the old accounting system. With the new Order Management software in place, all orders (from one top hat to thousands of children's dressing up clothes for Marks & Spencer) are now entered onto the system as soon as they come through the door. Some are received by EDI, others by post, email, fax or telephone.

 


"Order Management gives us total control over all activities at each of our locations. We are now able to track stock and orders, whether from the factory into a warehouse and called-off for our customers, or sent directly to customers from the factory. Because we can control the movement of stock, we can complete the process properly, ensuring all orders are despatched and invoiced at exactly the right time."

The solution has significantly improved Christys' stock position. With an integrated stock control system the company is fully aware of what stock is held at each location, making it possible to drive down stock levels and manage the purchasing process.

Advanced Product Development


Christys' is also implementing the Product Development module. Product Development is a data management system that organises all information relating to a product or range of products from initial ideas through to selection. It includes sub-modules for Costing, Critical Path, Product Specifications and other relevant Forms to support the product development life-cycle.

One of the ways Christys' plans to use Product Development is to build profiles of products for customers. This means that Designers, Merchandisers and Garment Technologists can all save time, as the solution saves data on customer likes and dislikes, what they request, and what sells.

"We are building more productive relationships with our customers, offering them a more professional, organised and faster service from product development through to delivery," says Andy. "Holding all product information centrally and securely takes away the reliance on individual knowledge of either the product or the customer. It also means that we are getting smarter on our initial presentations, which makes us more professional and more able to show that we understand our customer requirements. This supports in turn our business development and customer retention aims."


"Using the Costing element, we can track standard costs and expectations of other costs such as trims, packaging and labels; monitoring and comparing expectations against actual so that we deliver better pricing for customers and still improve our own margins."


Critical Path enables Christys' to have more control over their manufacturing process. Merchandisers were using their own spreadsheets so it was possible to report on products but much more difficult to get a view from a different angle, for example, activity by factory or by merchandiser, or of the whole situation.

"Being able to see the bigger picture, we can assess supplier and merchandiser performance and work with them to identify any problem areas and how they can be improved," says Andy. "You often hear about delays too late in the fulfilment process with companies having to delay deliveries which can infuriate their customers. Critical Path makes it possible to identify delays in events within the product life-cycle and so do something about it before it is too late. This, of course, leads to a much more productive relationship with their customers as well as giving them more confidence in the Christy service."

Gaining the Edge


Christys' feel that the implementation of a fully integrated, specialist clothing industry supply chain solution has not only given them the ability to compete effectively, but has given them an edge over their competitors. But that's not all. The module that takes Christys' head and shoulders above their competitors is Prima's Information Manager.

Information Manager enables managers to access, analyse, share and act upon key performance information, either in-house over an Intranet, Extranet or in an e-business environment.

"Information Manager is an incredibly powerful tool," says Andy. "The one thing any company needs most is business information. Without this information, how can you make decisions confidently and how can you provide an outstanding customer service? You do need the data there in the first place to be able to use it and that data needs to be accurate; get this right and the benefits are phenomenal. With this software you can easily present that data in a way that everyone can understand it, which is fantastic!"

Information Manager is used to monitor key performance indicators at Christys'. With their board members spread throughout the UK it used to be impossible for them to collectively monitor the performance of the business on a daily basis.

Andy explains how the board is now able to monitor performance remotely and on a daily basis."Using PrimaNet® we operate like a virtual team. We have access to a real-time snapshot of business performance and receive emailed reports, which is vital for us to keep up to date with the development of the whole business. We get access to clear information, with exception reporting so that we can focus on potential problems before they become major issues. It makes it much easier to make more effective decisions confidently because we are all well-informed."

Benefits to Christys' Customers

Christys' also recognise that their customers are benefiting from their investment. Andy explains."We are able to liaise more closely with our customers through the product development process, provide more information about our products, and progress the status of orders. We can alert customers of issues sooner and resolve them quicker to avoid late deliveries. We are building closer working relationships with our customers and everyone benefits."

In conclusion, Andy says, "We believe excellent working relationships are one of the keys to business success. Working closely with Prima Solutions we have achieved a solution that is allowing us to grow. It is beautifully simple - the software and the relationship. Through this partnership we have developed better working relationships with our customers and our suppliers so that we are working to greater benefit up and down our total supply chain. The future can only be bright - but we are not complacent!"