Epicor has announced that Growing Wild Garden Supply has selected Epicor Eagle N Series. This is the first serious ERP solution the company has chosen. Impressively, the company has already identified the KPI’s it hopes to achieve using the ERP solution.
The challenge
Founded in 2009 the garden supply store and nursery operates across two locations within the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, California. The previous solution suffered from downtime, data loss and inconsistent reporting. Teresa Newman, owner of the company realised that it was time to replace it. With two locations and a growing business it was time for a retail business management solution that included point of sale integration.
Newman explained why she selected Epicor saying: “We chose the Eagle N Series solution because it will better connect both locations and streamline every aspect of our business—from ordering and inventory control to intuitive reporting and easy-to-use POS.”
KPI’s critical for success
It is rare that business owners actually cite the KPI’s they are hope to achieve with a new implementation. Whether the KPI’s are actually documented is always a question. Newman however is clear on her objectives and was willing to state them. Newman said: “As a garden supply business our model is entirely seasonal, with margins and product quantities that fluctuate greatly. Through the utilization of Eagle N Series software, our initial goals are to increase our gross margin and pricing control by at least half a percent, turn our inventory at a quicker rate, boost overall business efficiency, and gain real-time access to business analytics. We are excited to partner with Epicor and look forward to seeing these goals come to fruition.”
By increasing the gross margin by half a per cent Newman will hope to recoup the costs of the implementation. There is also no detail on the other improvements that Newman is aiming for. In numerical terms one hopes that she is now able to capture that information and identify the increased efficiency and profitability that Epicor has delivered.
This is a lesson that other small business owners should heed. Investments in ERP solutions are often scary but working out what the benefits they are looking for is important. Putting percentage and numbers against those KPI’s even more so. Once the dust has settled companies often look back with a gut feel approach to gauge an implementation’s success. They should calculate the ROI properly and work out whether they want to reinvest to enhance the solution further.
Conclusion
Epicor Eagle N Series continues to attract new customers across a number of vertical industries. Whether Growing Wild Garden Supply will achieve their KPI’s is unknown. For Epicor this is another small but interesting customer win. What wasn’t made clear in the press release was whether the solution was deployed from the cloud or on-premises. The sensible option is cloud as it enables staff in both locations to access data easily. It would also enable Newman to grow her business to additional sites quickly.
Doug Smith, director, product marketing, retail and distribution at Epicor commented: “Epicor helps enable growth for lawn and garden businesses from the greenhouse to inside the retail store, as well as from location to location .Through the use of robust Eagle N Series technology, Growing Wild Garden Supply will have access to key business information that will help them target bottom line improvements.”
