Bell Tea Brews Up Success With Axapta

New Zealand's leading tea manufacturer, the Bell Tea company, has chosen Microsoft Business Solutions Axapta and implementation partner CGNZ Middle Market Solutions, to modernise business processes and create a competitive advantage.

To remain responsive to the ever-changing market and to continue to exceed customer expectation, Bell Tea needed to vastly improve their forecasting process and upgrade their IT system, explains David McKeown, Financial Controller at Bell Tea: "Our existing CBA system was 14 years old, and whilst adequate, it simply couldn't offer us the scope for change and updates that we needed to drive our business forward. We needed to improve our capacity planning and sales forecasting tool and were also keen to meet and exceed the demands of our customers. The system was coping but was also starting to become a block to growing existing product lines and introducing new products."

Through an intensive tendering process, Bell Tea reviewed a variety of solutions and a number of technology partners. Finally, the decision was made to move to an integrated Microsoft technology platform, to address both Bell Tea's strategic business and technology needs. McKeown says: "The evidence showed us that Axapta was perfectly placed for our business, it had been used by other food manufacturers like Hubbards and Old Fashioned Foods, and is based on relatively new technology." "The area of our business which is unique to us as a tea manufacturer is our tea batching and blending process and we investigated Axapta quite rigorously to ensure it could be customised to include this. With Axapta, we were also really impressed with the 'out of box' functionality of the system and its ability to match our individual needs."

The decision to upgrade to Axapta came alongside an overall plan to revamp Bell Tea's IT infrastructure. As well as Axapta, Bell Tea are upgrading from a dated Novell server to Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Axapta will provide Bell Tea with an integrated solution across their business, giving staff increased access to information previously held by unconnected systems. McKeown speaks very highly of his technology partner, CGNZ, explaining that he worked with them as a cohesive team from the start of the project and is confident of a successful project outcome: "Selecting the right partner was an important part of the project. Once you've ticked the boxes on what the software can do for you, the next important aspect is ensuring you have the right partner to see the process through with you. For us, it really came down to the right fit between company cultures and we've got that with CGNZ. Even though CGNZ are relatively new to the FMCG manufacturing sector, we feel they demonstrate a great balance between their technology and business expertise," explains McKeown.

James Page, Axapta Team Leader, CGNZ Middle Market Solution was instrumental in the Bell Tea Project. "The Bell Tea Axapta implementation is an exciting project to be involved in, and one where we hope to make a real difference to the way they do business," comments Page. "A key benefit for Bell Tea will be improved purchase management. The ability to drive purchasing directly from sales forecasts will reduce the cost of stock holding and improve Bell Tea's ability to meet customer expectations."

Meanwhile, David Guy, Partner Group Manager for Microsoft Business Solutions adds: "By implementing Axapta, Bell Tea have elevated themselves to a very strong competitive position. Axapta will also give the company the potential to reduce costs by improving planning around stock levels." "Axapta will also elevate the level of service we can provide our customers and suppliers giving us an advantage over our competitors," concludes McKeown. "Our major supermarket customers are pushing for an electronic invoicing and supply service and if you can't keep up with what is an increasing trend in the FMCG industry, you won't grow with your customers or win new business."

Bell Tea's new Axapta system is set to go live on July 4, 2005.

About Bell Tea: A Century of Tradition in New Zealand

New Zealand's favourite choice in tea, Bell Tea, has been helping Kiwis to 'feel alive' for more than 100 years. One of the earliest kiwi icons, Bell Tea is blended, packed and distributed by the Bell Tea Company from two factories; Dunedin and East Tamaki in Auckland. The Bell Tea Company, which is 100% New Zealand owned, sources its tea from the world's most renowned tea producing countries. The Company is the market leader in tea in New Zealand through Bell and other local brands as well as Twinings which is packed in New Zealand under license from Twinings International.

About CGNZ Middle Market Solutions

CGNZ Middle Market Solutions specialises in the implemenation of business solutions for small corporate and middle market companies. The core activity of its team is the implementation and support of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), E-Business solutions and related technologies from Microsoft Business Solutions. Its primary focus is on the implementation and support of Microsoft Axapta, Microsoft Navision and Microsoft CRM. In support of this core activity, the team draws on the general systems implementation and integration capabilities of CGNZ.

More information can be found on CGNZ Middle Market Solutions