Leicestershire headquartered BrightBridge Solutions Limited, a leading ERP solution provider specialising in cloud based technology is moving John Astley & Sons Limited to the cloud with NetSuite.
Trusted by more than 40,000 organisations worldwide, NetSuite is a leading integrated cloud business software suite, including business accounting, ERP, CRM and ecommerce software.
Established in 1730 and reputed to be the oldest continually trading company in Coventry, Astleys are a family owned and manged business with over 4,000 customers from all types of operations. The business operates from a modern purpose-built warehouse and offices which also includes a trade counter sales area, and offers a range of over 15,000 products across a huge spectrum of categories from cleaning and hygiene materials, to safety footwear to PPE clothing, hand and power tools and so much more.
Astleys have been running and managing its own proprietary software system for nearly 40 years. The incumbent system is a heavily bespoked application written using the Mumps programming language, with Caché as the database. Mumps was first developed in 1966 and the latest release was released in 1995. Whilst highly customised and developed Astleys’ system has now reached end of life. NetSuite offers a robust, future-proof solution that Astleys believe is essential to the development and security of the Company.
From the outset Astleys knew they needed a unified system that could provide them with a fresh modern interface that was user friendly for existing staff, as well as being attractive to future employees. They also needed an intuitive reporting system that would give them immediate access to management information. The solution also had to offer fast and efficient transaction processing as well as best practice processes and workflow.
David Astley, Operations Director at Astleys, said: “We invested a lot of time and effort in developing our current system at Astleys but we realised we needed something that would improve our business as our company evolves and we required a solution that would streamline and enhance our existing processes to make us more efficient.”
As part of the business systems selection process, Astleys reviewed several competitive offerings but ultimately chose the NetSuite solution based on the business case presented by BrightBridge.
David Astley explained: “BrightBridge listened closely to our needs and took the time to understand our business. Selecting a new business management system is not something we do every day and we had to make sure we selected the right system as well at the right partner to implement the solution. BrightBridge met with us many times and allayed any concerns or fears we had via their consultative approach. They have been responsive when we needed them to be and their guidance and expertise through the selection process with the NetSuite solution has been invaluable to us.”
David continued: “The senior management team were all involved in the decision process and are massively enthused about the clear time and efficiency savings that would be gained by using NetSuite.
“The strength of the NetSuite is that it is a cloud based solution. This was a major factor in our final decision. With NetSuite, you get two seamless system upgrades a year meaning we are running the latest and greatest version at all times and we no longer need to spend time administering a business system. For us this liberates significant management time enabling us to focus on running our business rather than an IT system.”
Ian Robertson, Sales & Marketing Director, at BrightBridge Solutions concluded: “Firstly I would like to thank Astleys for selecting BrightBridge to implement their new solution. Astleys as a business understands clearly the business benefits that NetSuite and cloud can bring to their organisation. The NetSuite cloud enables Astleys to avoid high IT capital costs and the ongoing maintenance associated with on premise software. We look forward to working with Astleys and building a long-term partnership with them.”
Astleys has selected the NetSuite Mid-Market Edition for Wholesale Distributors and this will cater for 25 users.
https://brightbridgesolutions.com
