Hillier Nurseries Boosts its Daily Order Lines by 150% with Priority ERP
Customer Success
Who: Hillier Nurseries
What: Gardening industry
Where: Romsey, Hampshire, UK
Web: https://www.hillier.co.uk/nurseries/
When Hillier Nurseries’ exisiting ERP system started to crackat the seams, it sought out a new solution that would be reliable, flexible and meet its every requirement. Enter Medatech UK.
Having a powerful ERP system that delivers against your most exacting needs has become something of a ‘must have’ for many businesses. However, unless the system can be trusted to stand up to the rigours of a full-on operation, every day of the week, what is perceived as an asset can soon become little more than a liability. If your current system is at breaking point, it is time to look elsewhere.
This was the situation in which Hillier Nurseries of Romsey, Hampshire, family-owned company with a great tradition in professional horticulture, found itself. The system it was using was no longer able to cope and needed to be replaced as a matter of urgency.
After reviewing available solutions, it decided on Medatech UK Priority ERP solution and, from there, the initial go-live was rapid. “Normal expectation for this size of implementation would be around 15 months,” states Medatech UK managing director Phil Nicholls. “Hillier achieved this in just 15 weeks. Certainly, the success of this project was helped by the thoroughness of approach of both the Hillier staff and the project consultants from Thinkers Ltd.”
What, though, were the major factors that persuaded Hillier Nurseries to opt for Priority?
- Priority is easily adaptable to suit Hillier’s unique needs
- It is designed and engineered not only for maximum flexibility, but also to put that flexibility into the hands of the customer’s project team, not the development team
- Layout of customer documentation easily under your control. Easy to email customer documents as PDF attachments
- Users like it
- We believe in the people from Medatech
In the first year of running Priority, Hillier
Nurseries achieved a 25% increase in orders and reports that it did not spend such long hours on order-taking and fulfilment, as opposed to previous years.
Moreover, since moving to Priority, Hillier Nurseries has seen a number of business benefits, such as:
- Responding better to customers
- Creating a more agile company
- Being able to change its customer offerings and services more quickly and easily
- Building a more efficient company.
Reaching all of these landmarks has involved Medatech UK’s Priority solution in several ways, in order – among other benefits – to:
- Cut down on paperwork
- Eliminate data re-keying and reconciliation
- Streamline the company’s processes.
On top of that, Hillier Nurseries’ finance department has recently reported a reduction in the duration (and therefore cost) of external auditors by 60% with Priority, due to ease of reporting and access to data.
Undoubtedly, having such a flexible product as Priority is vital for Hillier Nurseries. “The horticultural industry has unique challenges, which mean that the use of a standard solution would introduce compromises that they couldn’t live with,” comments Medatech UK’s Nicholls. “Today, especially, it is vital that such organisations run as efficiently as they can, which means they must have a solution that is configurable to them.”
Meanwhile, in the lead-up to the 150th birthday of Hillier Nurseries and Garden Centres, it continues to strive to meet a goal
that has not changed since its origins back in 1864: always to supply its services to the highest calibre.