Upperpoint was formed as a result of a management buyout in 1999 and has two main parts to its business - distribution and manufacturing. A UK company, it has subsidiaries in the UK, South Africa and Portugal.

Norbain SD Ltd is part of Upperpoint's distribution business and it is Europe's largest distributor of CCTV and Access Control equipment. The main area that differentiates Norbain from its competitors is the investment that it has made in logistics and its approach to customer care

With a reputation in the industry of possessing the widest range of stock with the highest level of availability, Norbain has achieved this status, and its lead in the market, thanks to considerable foresight and its investment in IT

the problem
Norbain recognised that the success of the industry would be heavily dictated by the demand for superb logistics. A strategic planning process undertaken by Norbain of its business identified the need to improve its warehousing and delivery functions, the hub of its business. For Norbain this would enable it to achieve its current and future business targets, and to ensure that it would be able to meet what it believes will be the increased demand for high-level logistics.

With this in mind, the company was forced to consider the capability of its existing system. While the bespoke system was capable of matching the demands of it at the time, it was a proprietary system that required a lot of internal resourcing. Norbain believed that, with the business growing and developing as it was, it would need a more open solution that could be easily enhanced and cope with the growing demand placed on it.

Hence the company required a supply chain management system that would afford it the transparency essential to efficiently manage its stock and customer demands, and be flexible enough to match the Norbain's growing business needs.

the solution
The implementation of Strategix has greatly impacted on Norbain's business and the company has more than doubled its warehouse stock turn-over since it has been deployed. This impressive result has been supported through a number of positive results experienced in the two core areas of Norbain's business.

logistics
Critical to Norbain's leading reputation within the market is the need to ensure stock availability when an order is received. Norbain targets to have a greater than 98 per cent availability of 'A' stock items, which calculates to more than 2000 goods. In addition to this, it will hold on a back to back basis on its complete inventory some 5000 products. This has earned Norbain the reputation of having the widest range of stock with the highest level of availability within the industry and has been achieved through computerisation of its purchasing process.

Speed of service and response is critical for Norbain. As a result of implementing Strategix, the company has been able to offer a service that none other in the market is able to offer. While most of its competitors finish at five o'clock in the afternoon, Norbain is able to take orders and ship products until nine o'clock at night. To meet its customers shipping requirements, Norbain has partnered with its couriers across the supply chain, integrating them with Strategix and hence replacing part of their supply chain with Norbain's. This makes their couriers part of the Norbain team and has given the company a significant advantage over all others in the industry. Now its customers can confidently take an order from their clients knowing that they will be able to deliver and fulfil that order at very short notice. This can happen as a result of the efficient manner in which Norbain now manages its supply chain from end to end.

customer care
For Norbain, customer care is a core part of its business philosophy. The implementation of Strategix has enabled the company to better utilise its existing computer technology and hence free up its workforce from the routine of the job. With a more efficient system, Norbain's personnel are now able to focus more of their time on delivering what it is the customers want and so ensuring the retention of valuable customers in a Norbain's competitive market.

Another area in which Norbain ensures the care of its customers is that of returns. When placing an order with Norbain, a customer might make a mistake and order too many products. Norbain has organised its logistics system to take away the problem from those customers who have products that are not required or that are faulty. Through the sophisticated tracking technologies within its supply chain, Norbain is able to organise for the product to be collected and that within 24 hours credit is re-issued to the customer.

conclusion
Today, Norbain is able to ship £70m worth of products through its warehouse and has the capacity to significantly increase that figure. This remarkable result has been achieved through a more efficient use of its IT system and through the capabilities provided through its supply chain such as stock planning.

The company itself has reaped the benefits of the new system. Prior to its implementation, Norbain predicted that it would require a growth in its headcount to better run the business. Due to its increased efficiency of its business processes, the company has been able to maintain its headcount at a stable level while increasing its turn over by 30 to 40 per cent.

"We attribute a considerable amount of Norbain's business success to its use of IT," said Alan John, CEO Upperpoint. "The use of Strategix has been so successful in our distribution business that, having recently acquired another manufacturing business, we have purchased Strategix as its operating system."

May 2002