Director
Pioneer Feed & Country Store
Pioneer Feed & Country Store is the leading independent supplier of pet, horse and farm feed in the three counties of Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester.
Established over 25 years ago they have continued to grow and now have a large store and warehouse based in Ledbury.
Download Case Study PDF
Pioneer Feed & Country Store is in a period of growth and needed an efficient, comprehensive business software solution to support and drive its business forward in the coming years.
They spoke to OGL about their requirements and plans for the future to understand how OGL Software can streamline their current business processes and help them keep control of their stock.
Pioneer Feed & Country Store's Director states they set out searching for a new ERP system to, "achieve control during our growth, we especially needed integration across all aspects of the business. We want automated processes in general across the business to reduce paper, increase efficiency and reduce lost time spent in manual processes".
Currently using QuickBooks for the accounts, AccuPOS for trade counter sales and manual paper processes for stock management and ordering, they needed a software solution that would combine all areas of their business into one, easy-to-manage, accurate solution.
It's common to find businesses outgrowing their current software when they begin to expand their customer and product portfolio.
It can become an overwhelming task to manually track products and control stock levels as well as maintaining customer records and orders. The first challenge Pioneer Feed & Country Store wanted to overcome was a tighter, more accurate control and visibility of their stock levels.
Looking to open a new depot, in a different location, means that it's become even more important to be able to effectively and accurately locate stock.
The Director explained how currently "manual stock control is a very laborious process which occupies key staff's time that could be better used elsewhere to help drive the business forward."
The Stock Management module in OGL Software seamlessly connected all modules for Pioneer Feed & Country Store within the system, including Sales Order Processing, Trade Counter Sales and Purchasing.
This ensures they have full visibility of the stock they hold, they can see trends in sales to know when to order and they'll have batch traceability on all their products.
For Pioneer Feed & Country Store, this was key in investing in OGL Software.
The second challenge they were looking to solve is that, "stock codes, customer special pricing and other key bits of information are stored in the staff's heads. It was down to individual staff members to remember and be available when the information was needed, which meant staff members were constantly asking colleagues for the data. This was time-consuming, open to error and fell down if key staff members were not available because they were busy or on holiday."
Pioneer Feed & Country Store didn't have an efficient method of storing all their customer, account and stock information, making delivering consistent, quality customer service difficult.
OGL Software provided them with a centralised, digital ERP solution that became the information hub available to all members of staff. The CRM can hold their key customer pricing, previous order history, customer product preferences and contact information, which means that all relevant staff members will be able to view this whenever necessary with just a few clicks of a button.
This inevitably sped up service, improved customer relationships and made life easier for all members of staff. Plus, the information can be accessed from the sales order screens so when taking a phone order or a sale at their trade counter they can be sure they have up-to-date, accurate information to increase up-sell opportunities and improve customer service.
As the company continue to expand, OGL Software will provide Pioneer Feed & Country Store with the reliable, connected business software they need to support them in their journey.
Download Case Study PDF
