Crest Electronic's new ERP delivers corporate clarity

After a Microsoft Dynamics AX implementation by Professional Advantage, the sound and vision accessories distributor has crystal clear visibility across its business systems...

Established over thirty years ago, Crest Electronics has grown to become Australia’s leading distributor of world-class accessories to the sound and vision industry.

From its Queensland headquarters the company supplies over 4,000 retailers with a wide range of home and professional equipment from manufacturers including Philips and Sony.

Over the past decade Crest has benefited from the nation’s ever-growing appetite for sophisticated sound and home entertainment systems.

Crest is experiencing strong double digit growth. In the past year sales have grown in excess of 30 percent and Crest is well on track to increase this by forty percent within the next two years.

Problem
For many years Crest’s business systems were comprised of three completely separate, unintegrated pieces of software.

The first two – a warehouse management system and a product management and reporting system – had been developed by in-house staff. The third piece of software was the System 77 financial software package.

According to chief financial officer Matt Birtwistle, it all worked well but the lack of integration meant that the same piece of information could require up to three separate data entry exercises. It was a cumbersome set-up that Crest could not afford to continue with if it wanted to capitalise on the growth opportunities being presented.

In addition, the reliance on home-grown software meant that key system knowledge resided with only one or two individuals.

Another factor was that System 77 was nearing its end of life and support would be withdrawn in 2010.

Solution
With Crest being a self-described Microsoft shop, Microsoft GP was high on Birtwistle’s list of possible solutions.

“Apart from a few small open systems applications, all our technology is Microsoft,” he says. “Our people know how to use the software, so it was the obvious next place to look.”

Birtwistle approached Professional Advantage, Crest’s long-time IT partner, and explained what he was looking for.

After evaluating Microsoft Dynamics AX and following advice from Professional Advantage, Birtwistle decided the Microsoft solution offered Crest the best fit.

“It met our business needs and the technology proved to be easy for our own developers to work with,” he says.

“This meant the chance of achieving significant savings.”

Implementation
Birtwistle adopted a policy of “ask first, implement later”.

“We had an extensive presales period whereby we put the software in front of all the key decision makers and gave them the opportunity to ask questions,” he says.

In addition he commissioned Professional Advantage to conduct a comprehensive scoping study, an activity that ensured Crest had a complete solution design document before making any final commitment to the software.

“It is not a step most companies go to but it gave us complete assurance,” Birtwistle explains. “It made sure that we knew what we were getting into.”

Implementation of the solution began in August 2007 and it went live on March 1, 2008. It was a project that Birtwistle believes went extremely smoothly. “One of the reasons it worked so well was that we made sure we appointed system champions early on,” he says.

“We also took ownership of the system very quickly by choosing to handle much of the configuration ourselves. We’d talk to Professional Advantage and say ‘Here’s how we’d like to proceed’ and they would guide and advise us on how to go about it. It was a very flexible approach.”

Roger Gibson, Professional Advantage’s project manager for Crest adds: “To make sure it worked we provided training to selected Crest personnel early in the project. That allowed Crest to take on more responsibility and joint project management, which led to faster decision-making and a more successful project.

“It also allowed us to step back and act as a mentor in the development and testing phase. The result was that Crest very quickly developed an in-house capacity to develop many of the customisations before going live and to enhance the Microsoft Dynamics AX solution into the future.”

Benefits
The project was finished on time, on budget and without any impact on orders going out the door. The final Microsoft Dynamics AX set-up includes the complete financial management module, inventory management and work orders functionality. It has replaced the previous financial and product management software with a single system that offers complete integration with Crest’s “pick to light” Warehouse Management System.

Three months after going live duplication of data entry has become a problem of the past and streamlined processes are helping Crest to realise significant time savings in the critical areas of invoicing and payments.

Visibility of data across the company and faster, easier access to information are also helping to enhance customer service.

Enquiry time is down while service staff responsiveness has improved. It’s an important result given greater customer focus is one of Crest’s two main strategies for achieving its planned revenue growth.

Future
“In the next year or two we’ll continue to develop our use of the software and customise it to make it more specific to Crest’s business,” says Birtwistle. “But right now we have all the functionality that we need in a platform that will grow along with us.”

For more information

Professional Advantage
Web: www.pa.com.au/microsoft
Ph: 1800 126 499
E: microsoftinfo@pa.com.au

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