Food giant gobbles up eCollaboration
31 May 2000
Leading meat producer Bernard Matthews is one of the first companies to adopt the newly packaged, off the shelf, e-collaboration applications from Eqos Systems.
Formerly only available as a bespoke solution for major retailers and suppliers, Eqos' new standardized packages bring the concept of Internet based e-collaborative supply chain solutions to a much broader business sector.
Bernard Matthews, a major supplier to the leading supermarket chains - Sainsbury's, Tesco and Safeway - believes the main benefits will be in the ability to manipulate sales information quickly and easily, so planning can be more accurate and decision making more responsive and faster.
"Currently we have a mass of information from retailers' Extranets to trawl through and it is difficult to pick up the trends, changes in purchasing and stockouts," says Edwin Pearson, general manager, planning and materials supply.
"The Eqos system enables us to consolidate data from a number of sources all using different systems, summarize it and manipulate it to our advantage."
Much of the company's chilled and fresh meat business is on an order today, dispatch today basis, so accurate, timely information is vital.
"While we obviously know turkey demand is going to be high around Christmas, there are 48 other weeks to account for. Working with perishable products with a 6-7 day shelf life we need to know accurately how much is needed and when," continues Mr Pearson.
"With the Eqos system, I will know whether I need to agree overtime for staff to work an 8 hour shift on a Sunday preparing turkey slices or drumsticks or not; I see this as being of enormous advantage to us."
Efficiency, cost saving and most importantly the opportunity to enhance customer services are all features which Mr Pearson believes can be gained from adopting the Eqos package.
"The beauty of the Eqos system is that it requires a minimum investment in terms of time and resources and installation is fast. Additionally our return on investment will be quick to realize," he adds.
"To maintain our position as one of the best recognized food brands in the UK, we have to take advantage of new technology that can help improve our business. The Eqos system has been proven over the past two years through the development work with the leading supermarkets and some of their key customers."
Eqos has produced two sets of packaged solutions: Retail Suite and Manufacturing Suite. Among the special features of Retail Suite are four pre built applications (which can be tailored to individual company requirements) covering: new product information, promotions management, product chain management and product returns.
The Manufacturing Suite includes an application which collects data from various sources removing the need for rekeying and an Extranet Optimizer which can consolidate information and create exception reports.
Notes to Editors:
Eqos Systems
Eqos Systems is a UK-based innovator in collaborative software based on advanced Internet technologies. Today, leading companies use Eqos software to achieve a step-change in the way they share vital trading and supply chain information over the Internet, enabling them to achieve dramatic improvements in inter-company productivity and performance.
Eqos has won several coveted industry awards for innovation in e-Business based, supply chain management. In February this year, it was runner-up for both the Hottest UK Software Company and Innovation of the Year at the UK Technology Awards and Sainsbury's, primarily using Eqos software, won the coveted FT Global award for "the most outstanding use of IT in the Supply Chain". The company's latest accolade is winning the US, VICS 2000 Best in Retailer/Supplier Relationship Award for its groundbreaking work also with Sainsbury's. VICS are the owners of the authoritative Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) standards.
Eqos.com is hosted by one of the UK's leading ISPs and is directly linked to the Internet. This connection has exceptionally high bandwidth to multiple locations in Europe and the USA. Each server is hosted in a secure site with backup facilities to cope with loss of power, natural disasters and other major emergencies.
For further information, please contact:
Linda Laderman or Anne Lomax
Laderman PR
5 Portland Place
London W1B 1PW
Phone +44 (0)20 7436 6676
Fax +44 (0)20 7580 0555
Email annel@ladermanpr.co.uk
