"Carillon ERP and PDA have resulted in increased staff productivity and improved access to timely data. We are finally able to operate our business in real-time, and that makes a significant impact on our ability to take better care of our clients." - Chuck Warren, CFO, GHC Reid & Co.
Location:
American Samoa
Industry:
Beverage Distribution
Software Replaced:
Outdated Financial System
Founded in 1904, GHC Reid & Co. remains the oldest continually operating business and the exclusive Coca-Cola and beverage distributor in American Samoa. GHC Reid currently distributes wholesale beverages, with plans to manufacture beverages slated to begin before year end.
When Chief Financial Officer of GHC Reid & Co., Chuck Warren, began his career in the beverage distribution business just over two years ago, he could not have anticipated how successful the business was to become. Now the exclusive Coca-Cola, Miller, Coors and Vailima beer and beverage distributor in American Samoa, GHC Reid began its operations by tracking and updating all records manually, from inventory and shipment statuses to contact information and financial reports.
In 2003, GHC Reid discovered Carillon ERP in the Journal of Accountancy magazine. Carillon ERP had been ranked among the top 10 ERP packages on the market with its fully integrated, real-time software solution and the flexibility to be customized to meet specific industry demands. After Warren explained his needs to a team of developers at Carillon, the developers immediately got to work. Shortly thereafter emerged a customized Carillon ERP system that could do all of the distribution company's enterprise logistical work automatically, efficiently and in real-time.
Warren returned less than two years later with yet another challenge: the sales team at GHC Reid now needed anytime access to contact databases and sales orders entry applications while in the field. Up to that point, sales personnel would take customer orders back to the office at the end of each day and give the handwritten orders to a clerk to be entered into the company database. Sales representatives would unknowingly place orders for out-of-stock items, resulting in further delays delivering the promised goods. The sales team needed access to the Available-To-Sell (ATS) quantities as well as the shipping statuses of ordered goods to ensure timely delivery of every order.
Carillon was already one step ahead with the complete solution.
Carillon was already in the process of releasing its mobile CRM and Sales Order Entry PDA applications. Within just weeks of the release, installation began at GHC Reid. The Carillon PDA applications would now allow GHC Reid sales representatives to enter orders remotely and sync the orders back into the main database. This alleviated the countless data entry errors, the delay of entering orders and the ordering of out-of-stock items.
"Since the deployment of Carillon PDA, our reps spend up to two more hours per day in the field, as they now have time for proper merchandising and marketing activities," says Warren. "They no longer have to rush back to the office to have customer orders entered into the system before close of business every day. The orders are already entered, and the shipments are already in the works."
Business at GHC Reid has drastically improved since implementation of Carillon ERP and Carillon PDA. Inventory shrinkage has reduced over 90 percent due to real-time data access and always informed mobile sales representatives; labor costs have significantly reduced as a result of automated processes; and with access to shipping statuses and ATS quantities, promised goods are delivered on time.