System Selection and Project Management Support
The Client
Fever-Tree is the English translation for the name of the Cinchona tree, the bark of which provides the original key quality ingredient for the company’s tonics; Quinine.
Fever-Tree is the world’s leading supplier of premium carbonated mixers, with distribution to markets across the world. The company currently has about 100 employees globally. In 2017 revenues were more than £150m with annual YoY growth of more than 60%.
The Problem
Fever-Tree have grown rapidly as their premium products have quickly become a huge success in the marketplace. The company were utilising multiple systems and spreadsheets to manage what was a £100m+ turnover organisation. They found that there were silos of information around the business. They could not easily obtain a single version of the truth or a 360o view of their organisation.
In February 2017, Fever-Tree realised that they needed an ERP System to drive change and support growth in the business. Gradient’s first involvement was to carry out an initial phase of discovery to help determine the requirements of a new system. This was then followed by Gradient supporting the vendor selection process whereby Fever-Tree decided to move forward with the NetSuite system from NoBlue Ltd. Finally, Gradient provided project management services through the implementation stage.
The Solution
The relationship between Fever-Tree and Gradient began in February 2017 when we were asked to support the decision-making process. This eventually led to Gradient providing project management services with a successful Go Live in February 2018.
Gradient were able to work with Fever-Tree throughout the lifecycle of the project. It began with gathering requirements and ended in a successful implementation of the chosen system, NetSuite.
What the Client Says
“As a fast-growing business, we benefited from Gradient’s ability to provide step-by-step support along the way, allowing us to focus our attention on our day-to-day activities. Gradient has sound knowledge and experience in ERP selection and implementation and were able to assist in delivering a successful solution, within a short timeline.”
Actions
- Worked with key staff to determine the “As-is” processes and the systems in use to manage those processes. From here, we evolved what the future should look like, “To-be”. An overall Statement of Requirement was produced for Fever-Tree and approved.
- Consideration and advice are available on how to move from “As-is” to “To-be”.
- Managed the selection process, triaging the vendor responses to provide Fever-Tree with a list of suitable systems to match their requirements. Supported throughout the demo process in an advisory role to appoint the successful vendor, NoBlue Ltd.
- Provision of project management services to support the implementation process. Co-ordinating the Fever-Tree team with the vendor, managing data requirements, test scripts, training and reporting requirements.
- Supporting the migration process and deployment plan for a successful Go-Live.
Benefits
- The new ERP system has delivered the ability to view information in real time. There is a single source of information that now provides key management information for Fever-Tree.
- The system allows the customer to grow in a very simple way. You can add and consolidate new entities on a live basis, eliminating some manual steps at month-end reporting.
- The replacement of numerous spreadsheets to help manage supply and demand planning.
- Improved financial management provided through the use of standard costing mechanism.
- Clearer visibility of debt positions for customers, similarly where there are multiple customers under a single umbrella using multi-currencies.
- Ability to view quantities on hand at various locations on a live basis.
- Improved interface abilities with customers, suppliers, producers and logistics companies.
- Ability to track any transaction, including customer orders, on a live basis and identify which stage the transaction is in its life cycle.