Bread and butter finance

A complete IT overhaul can be a risky business for the manufacturing sector, where production cannot be allowed to falter during the implementation process. Choosing a reliable finance partner such as Syscap can ease the financial pressures of this critical time and ensure the solution is delivered on time and on budget.

Food Partners is the largest supplier of sandwiches to the contract catering, coffee and travel markets in the UK. Employing more than 1,100 members of staff based in four main manufacturing and distribution centres throughout Britain, the company makes upwards of 4,000 deliveries to its customers each day. Food Partners is a fast-paced business. The company prides itself on its agile manufacturing model, where orders are taken on a next day delivery basis and the company's factories each undertake on average 350 product changeovers every day. Keeping this £50 million business running smoothly is a mammoth feat of planning and logistics, so Food Partners has recently invested in a new Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) to help keep pace with the business. The ERP system was financed by the UK's leading independent IT finance provider, Syscap.

Hungry for change
To maintain its competitive edge, Food Partners must remain quick, agile and innovative, and continue to offer value for money. The company was formed three years ago following the acquisition of several smaller companies. Since then, Food Partners has relied on the legacy IT systems from each of these acquired businesses. Although these have certainly served the company well, they offered little room for growth and it was decided that a more sophisticated, and centralised system would offer considerable benefits now and into the future.

Fresh selection
Neil Robertson, Group Finance Director at Food Partners, explains the need for new IT: “We need a system that keeps pace with the business as we grow and develop. Our legacy systems are great for processing orders, but we could see the potential for a completely new solution that would enable us to control the entire supply chain and give us the visibility to manage and drive the business as we expand over the coming years. ERP has evolved to help businesses just like ours, and we were keen to explore the possibilities and benefits it will bring to Food Partners.”

Food Partners began researching the various systems and solutions available, since, as Robertson explains, “implementing IT into such a fast-paced industry can be risky. Sandwich production and delivery is not the sort of business where you can lose a few hours here and there because of teething problems. We simply can't afford to slow down production, and we have to get it right first time.”

Needing dough
Once the solution had been selected, Food Partners' IT provider suggested using a lease from Syscap to finance the equipment. Just like choosing the solution itself, Food Partners researched the market to check that this was the right path to take. “Because we had taken over legacy systems, we hadn't had to make any large scale IT acquisitions up to this point and needed to get up to speed on the best payment options,” explains Robertson. “Naturally, we have a good relationship with our bank, so it made sense to find out if Syscap could compete with what they could offer us.”

Robertson soon found that his bank's finance option couldn't match that of Syscap. “Syscap were willing to finance the entire project cost – including software, third party services and training. Our bank could only lease some of the necessary hardware. Syscap was competitively priced as well. They understand what you are trying to do and it doesn't cost any more than going to the bank.” Syscap has a dedicated manufacturing division, focused on developing finance options that suit the needs of this particular business sector. The manufacturing finance team understands the kinds of solutions on offer that can make a real difference to turnover, helping companies acquire them immediately without disrupting cashflow.

Roll out
With the finance in place, Food Partners began rolling out the implementation of its new ERP system in May 2005. “We started with our business in the south and it went without a hitch,” says Robertson. “There were no delays to business and we're already experiencing the benefits of the system. The real time information we are now extracting gives us more control than we've ever had before and a deeper understanding of every level of the business. This gives us the opportunity to react more quickly to change, helping us meet the needs of our customers even more effectively.”

Robertson would definitely choose finance again for any further IT acquisitions: “Having

financed the entire solution through Syscap, we effectively have a separate balance sheet for IT and it's all in one place. We know exactly what our ongoing IT costs are on a month by month basis, which also helps us to develop a clear understanding of the ROI we need to demand from our IT investment. Syscap has offered us the same clarity over our IT finance as we now have over our entire supply chain.”