Complexities of a growing wholesale distribution business
For more three decades, flooring solutions provider Terra Mater has been wholesaling to retailers across the country including the likes of Mitre 10. It also connects other Australian businesses like the Dunlop Group with manufacturers overseas. Terra Mater relies on its network of trusted suppliers to deliver high-quality products to its customers on time and at competitive prices.
Between their on-prem accounting solution and tracking everything from shipments to accounts receivables and sales on spreadsheets, day-to-day tasks had become hard to manage, hurting the company’s growth prospects.
With customers right across Australia and a network of manufacturers overseas, Terra Mater were originally looking for a new CRM solution, but learned that a cloud-based ERP would help bring all their business processes together.
Managing inventory in multiple locations a real struggle
With as many as four different warehouses in three major continents and teams working off separately maintained spreadsheets, getting an accurate, at-a-glance view of inventory, shipments, and sales was a challenge. Without the ability to filter data by location in MYOB AccountRight, individual teams had to collate data from various spreadsheets to check inventory levels. Not having an intelligent inventory management solution meant that sometimes stock in different locations would appear under a different code, leading teams to make decisions based on inaccurate data.
Lack of visibility hindering operations
With their customers relying on goods arriving exactly on time, being able to see where shipments were at any given time, what dock they would arrive in, and when they would reach the customer was the need of the hour for Terra Mater's operations team. But without the cloud infrastructure in place, they didn't have visibility over the supply chain. An ERP solution built to track these details in real time would not only reduce the pressure on the operations team, but would also allow the business to have better control over their overall customer experience.
Covid-19 wreaks havoc on pricing
As the Covid-19 pandemic continued to create logistical challenges, surface freight charges increased by 400% and shipping fees went up by 30-40% causing all previous costing to go out the window. The business had to find ways to account for skyrocketing increases and adjust their margins accordingly.
Transforming operations with a cloud-based ERP
Since implementing Wiise, Terra Mater have been able to transform the way they operate and be more nimble when making pricing decisions.
Streamlining operations and improving sales
Being able to filter inventory by location was a key requirement for Terra Mater – a functionality that MYOB AccountRight did not offer. With Wiise’s dimensional tagging feature, Terra Mater’s team can see where stock is at any given time and exactly how much of it is on hand, making re-ordering a more seamless process. Not just that, being able to see exactly where their shipments are now allows the sales teams to confidently sell stock before it even lands, which has seen sales increase by 80%.
Keeping customers happy and pricing goods more accurately
Factoring in unforeseen changes from huge economic and geo-political shocks can easily overwhelm a mid-sized business. With accurate insights powered by Cortana Intelligence, Wiise has been able to provide Terra Mater the real-time business data they needed to keep up with stock coming in and getting shipments out to customers on time.
With accurate data housed in ERP that makes short work of landed costing, the finance and operations teams can now account for all costs, and price their goods more accurately.
Reducing the time and effort spent on admin
By managing all their processes from the one system, Terra Mater have transitioned away from the admin-heavy, error-prone spreadsheets. The business is now saving 8 hours a day on reporting and can access detailed warehousing, shipping, and supply chain information anytime anywhere.
Staying operational through Covid, thanks to the cloud
With business data backed up in Microsoft Azure’s powerful cloud servers, Terra Mater’s finance, sales, and purchasing teams were able to transition to remote work practically overnight and experienced the benefits of having a single source of truth. Terra Matta say that they were lucky to switch to Wiise when they did.
Working with familiar productivity tools
Built on Microsoft Business Central and customised for the Australian market, Wiise integrates seamlessly with the entire Microsoft ecosystem, making it faster to implement and cutting out additional integration costs. Switching to Wiise has allowed Terra Mater to tap into the complete Dynamics 365 suite from Sales to CRM and Marketing. With collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Power BI dashboard reporting and PowerApps, Wiise is the end-to-end cloud-based business solution Terra Mater was looking for.
What’s next for Terra Mater?
In addition to streamlining their day to day operations, Wiise is at the centre of Terra Mater’s two-year strategy. The business is in the process of rolling out Dynamics 365 Sales, with the Dynamics 365 Marketing scheduled to be rolled out by the end of 2021. With plans to sell a selection of products directly to customers, Terra Mater are also exploring ecommerce possibilities within Wiise.
Wiise can help your business scale too
Just like with Terra Mater, we can help transform your operations and boost business performance. Read more customer testimonials here.
Whatever your business challenge, Wiise can help you see the complete picture and make more informed decisions. Request a call back to discuss your needs with our highly experienced team.
