New specialist IT systems have improved management visibility across complex pubs-to-wholesaling group

New specialist IT systems have improved management visibility across complex pubs-to-wholesaling group

With 1,100 corporate customers spread across Jersey and Guernsey in the Channel Islands, buying a variety of drinks from The Liberation Group adds up to a complex business. But life has been made significantly easier for the pubs-to-wholesaling group since its implementation of the Drink-IT solution from software provider K3.

Local jurisdictions add to complexity

The complexity of the business is intensified by the fact Jersey and Guernsey are individual jurisdictions that involves The Liberation Group effectively operating as two separate wholesaling businesses, with different pricing structures and distinct customer databases.

Declan Hearne, finance director at The Liberation Group, said: “The underlying technology and logistics aspects are generally the same but the impact of operating in two different markets with different pricing etc. makes it a bit complicated and had to be factored in when looking at systems.”

It was even more unwieldy to run when LGV Capital acquired the business in July 2008 and the management was initially reliant on the previous owner’s systems as part of a transitional services agreement – and these “were more focused on food and food distribution than on drinks”.

Finding a specialist solution

To smooth out these various issues, one of the first moves undertaken by Hearne and his team was to create a standalone software solution for The Liberation Group’s wholesaling business (it also operates a tenanted and managed pubs business with 69 outlets, as well as a brewery).

“We looked at two suppliers and with help from outside consultants, who recommended the Drink-IT solution, we went with the K3 option as it seemed to tick most of the boxes,” said Hearne.

Speed of implementation was imperative and so The Liberation Group and K3 timetabled the project to complete within a very tight five-month window – despite the consultants stating that ideally 12 months should be assigned for such a task.

“We were keen to get it in and it was a tall order. We pushed the button on the implementation in August 2008 and it went live in January 2009. Basically there was a project team here and at K3 and it was a lot of hard work to get it in,” Hearne recalled.

Ensuring the smooth running of the project was the close working relationship between The Liberation Group and K3 that involved the creation of a firm specification of the requirements of the Channel Islands-based business. “There was lots of liaison with K3 and so they had a good understanding of the quirks of what we do here and what needed to be built into the systems,” he explained.

Counting the upgrade benefits

On a simplistic basis, the key objective was to create a solution encompassing “customers calling for a keg of beer through to these orders being paid for and reported in the general ledger”. This involves the receipt of orders via the order offices and their subsequent delivery.

Customer statements and invoices are also handled by the Drink-IT system as is load planning. The software also has its own sales ledger, from which the relevant order data then automatically feeds into the group’s general ledger.

In addition, on the purchasing side, Drink-IT handles the ordering of goods by The Liberation Group from its various suppliers and enables the monitoring of these goods as they enter into the business. This information then feeds into the software’s purchase ledger that automatically updates the company’s general ledger.

The end-to-end aspect of the solution – from ordering by customers through to the data from each order feeding into the group’s ‘profit and loss’ account is among the main advantages of the software, according to Hearne, who also cites the user-friendliness of the software’s front end.

With Drink-IT running on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform, the provider said it benefits from being Windows-based, which enhances its usability for people within the organisation who have varying levels of technology expertise.

Another positive is the robust nature of the solution which, when combined with the early preparatory work done between The Liberation Group and K3, ensured that the implementation avoided any serious problems – despite the tight timeframe.

Hearn said: “From day one it did what it was supposed to do. I suppose lots of things could have gone wrong, but they didn’t. We delivered beer on day one and the follow on processes, invoices statements etc. all worked fine. It’s a good system.”

Looking to the future

The only changes made to the software to date involve minor tweaks that Hearne said have been undertaken largely because of the rapidity of the original implementation. The speed of the project also meant the rich reporting functionality of the Drink-IT solution has to some extent only been discovered and developed internally over time and that its myriad options mean that there is further scope to get more out of the system.

“It has been a learning process – particularly in the first six months – and we had to get up to speed with the reporting side quickly. We’ve also made some modifications on the reporting side since the implementation,” he added.

More enhancements could be introduced in the future. For example, Hearne states that the group is investigating improving the integration between the wholesaling side and the pubs division.

At present, the pubs’ business has a separate electronic point-of-sale (EPoS) system that makes it largely discrete from that of the wholesaling operation. But ideally, the managers at each of the group’s pubs should be able to automatically place orders via their EPoS, which would then feed into the Drink-IT solution, instead of the current system whereby they each have to manually phone through their orders to head office.