Britain’s Largest Floor Covering Retailer Selects TECSYS To Manage Distribution To Its 140+ Stores
MONTREAL (February 06, 2007) – TECSYS Inc. (TSX: TCS), an industry-leading Supply Chain Management (SCM) software company announced today that Floors-2-Go, the largest independent wood flooring retailer in the UK, has selected TECSYS’ warehouse management system (WMS) to automate its 130,000 square foot central warehouse and manage distribution to its 140+ stores across the country.
“The Floors-2-Go win anchors TECSYS as a solid contender for the business of European organizations in the distribution industry,” commented Peter Brereton, President and CEO of TECSYS Inc. “In 2005 we entered Europe with local presence to serve our global clients and capture a share of the growing logistics opportunities in that continent. Our investment is starting to pay off and I look forward to our continued business development initiatives to capture a share of this strategic market.”
Floors-2-Go offers a wide range of laminate and hardwood flooring from a selection of 130 products, and a comprehensive range of essential accessories. The company has been experiencing tremendous growth; in 1999 Floors-2-Go had 10 stores, growing to 49 by 2001 and doubling virtually every year to over 140 today. Its strategy is to dominate the UK flooring market by providing quality products from a wide selection, specialized knowledge from its staff and convenient store locations across the UK and a growth plan that is projecting the Company to reach close to 400 retail stores by 2010.
As the number one supplier in the UK, Floors-2-Go needed to automate its labour-intensive warehouse operations and manage the full supply chain cycle from customer order to delivery. At the same time, it needed full visibility of movement of orders and goods to ensure that management, and in particular, the front line commercialization and services’ staff can respond quickly and intelligently to clients at any time.
Prior to selecting TECSYS, Floors-2-Go had a stock locator system with limited warehouse management capabilities. The system was supplemented by a significant number of manual processes that were not in keeping with the Company’s number one market position, and its high quality products and professional services’ staff.
Floors-2-Go launched a product search among a number of players in the warehouse management software industry. After an extensive search, Floors-2-Go’s management decided on TECSYS as its preferred vendor of choice. The Company’s management liked the technology and TECSYS’ deep expertise in distribution, but most importantly they believed in TECSYS’ ability to deliver and support Floors-2-Go’s mission critical operations and business objectives.
“TECSYS understood our business requirements and was able to demonstrate how TECSYS’ EliteSeries could deliver on our business objectives. Floors-2-Go selected TECSYS based on its reputation in the Warehouse Management System’s (WMS) market and its valued advanced WMS functions,” stated Hardeep Chana, Information Technology Manager at Floors-2-Go. “We were particularly impressed with the hosted services offered and the low capital investment required. We believed that TECSYS’ commitment and experience would help to deliver a successful implementation complimented by high levels of support.”
The Company opted for TECSYS’ ASP application model, whereby the software is hosted and managed by TECSYS in Montreal, Canada. With TECSYS’ ASP application model, Floors-2-Go is able to focus on its core competency; retailing of laminate and hardwood floors and customer care, while continuing to attend to its aggressive growth to gain market share.
Despite the over 5000 kilometres distance between the warehouse facility in Birmingham, UK and the application servers in Montreal, Canada, response time is transparent to users, getting tier one warehouse management capabilities in sub-seconds, and without the need to attend to technology — hardware or software.
TECSYS’ EliteSeries is empowering Floors-2-Go to gain control over every transaction; significantly improving warehousing throughput and costs, improving orders turnaround, and achieving unparalleled enterprise visibility of its operations and customer service levels.
Source: Tecsys
