Wholesale distribution operations that were ripe for growth

Established in 2001, Bacchus Wine Merchant is a family-owned distributor of exclusive and hard-to-get wines, supplying Australia’s favourite venues and high-end restaurants. The Bacchus crew carefully chooses each wine in the company’s impressive range, ensuring only the finest are passed from vineyard to table. Although the company’s selective and extensive portfolio established notable organic growth, legacy systems held Bacchus back operationally.

Bacchus was heavily reliant on data exports and manual manipulation of spreadsheets to understand stock levels and inventory requirements. The company’s server-based version of MYOB added too much time (and frustration) to simple workflows. Operations & Ali Farhat explains, “When we exported large volumes of data, or even if we had too many users accessing the system at once, MYOB would consistently crash. Simple tasks like reporting or placing a purchase order were slow and frustrating.”

Ali and the Bacchus team were burdened with constant exports of data to spreadsheets and a heavy manual workload. They needed to organise and cross-check information through various manual processes to understand stock on hand, and current and projected supply and demand. It was clear the business was surpassing the limitations of its legacy system.

To yield greater productivity and more efficient operations, Bacchus partnered with DWR to implement a NetSuite ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. DWR stood out as the Australian NetSuite partner with a reputation for delivering on time and on budget.

Ali was immediately impressed with DWR’s professional yet personable approach. Ali explains, “We could tell it was the right connection straight away. We’d met with a few different solution providers that just didn’t impress. The boys at DWR came prepared, were easy to get along with, and brought a hugely positive attitude throughout the engagement. Everything went well, from first meeting the DWR team to going live.”

Along with significant operational improvements, sales processes and reporting have also been enhanced. Ali comments, “We can see our top-selling items every week, and that has brought some surprises. What we previously thought were our best-sellers and slow-moving items were quite different. We’ve now got accurate, live data supporting more strategic decisions about our product portfolio, and that helps us operate more profitably.”

The Bacchus team is now leveraging better processes and more valuable data from NetSuite to drive more strategic, profitable decision-making across the business. “It was taking hours to get the information I needed from the system from our old system.” Ali explains, “Now I just push a button in NetSuite to see accurate, live reports. Whether it’s sales reports, COA, incoming stock, items on backorder, promotions, stock on hand, stock sold, top customers, or top items sold, it’s all available instantly, letting us make better business decisions.”

Ali keenly recognises the company hasn’t yet reached the pinnacle of operational improvements to be gained from NetSuite, with much more opportunity ahead. The team is looking forward to seeing how NetSuite ERP continues to boost business growth well into the future.