UK sock manufacturer competes globally with SyscomERP

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

The UK’s number one brand for technical outdoor socks, Bridgedale Outdoor Ltd, has replaced their IT systems to keep pace with their global expansion. Having grown from a small business designing socks for the army during World War I, Bridgedale’s well-known technical socks are now supplied to over 40 countries world wide and have become the most trusted on the market.

As a growing international organisation, Bridgedale needed to replace their ageing systems and platforms; “Our objective was to increase our turnover by over 30% within the next 3 years,” says Gordon Raffan, Director of Bridgedale, “and we knew that integrating our global operations for a company-wide view would be crucial in gaining accurate business intelligence insight and effective collaboration necessary to achieve this.”

Having spent over eight months investigating business software systems and providers, Bridgedale chose specialist software provider Syscom PLC to implement SyscomERP throughout their business.
This software solution offers a complete financials, analytics and business management system that unifies data and processes across an organisation.

“SyscomERP stood out as the best match for our current and future requirements due to its flexibility and integrated structure,” says Gordon. “The system is easy to use whilst at the same time providing advanced, industry-specific functionality. What’s more, the scalability of the system means it will continue to meet our needs as we grow.” 

Bridgedale report a number of benefits following the implementation of SyscomERP, including business-wide integration and collaboration, enhanced access to information and improved customer service.

“Accurate stock control and sales forecasting are essential in ensuring we can deliver the right goods at the right time,” says Gordon. “Being able to have customer information to hand has proved invaluable in building relationships with our customers and distributors, and the efficiencies the system has brought about in our business processes generally has allowed us to concentrate on gathering customer feedback and developing our products so that we can continue to provide customers with the innovative and reliable socks they have come in expect.”

The software has also assisted Bridgedale in improving their environmental footprint as part of Bridgedale’s aim to design and sell products with a proper regard to environmental factors.

“Firstly, our socks are built to last,” says Gordon. “Bridgedale socks made with WoolFusion come with a 3 year guarantee. We have recently invested in a variable speed compressor to reduce our electricity demand for compressed air by 40% and therefore our carbon footprint. We are now also printing our trade workbooks from recycled paper. Moving to SyscomERP has played a substantial role in helping us to achieve our environmental objectives as it has reduced our paper usage by 50%.”

Syscom believe that Bridgedale is an example of how investing in the right business software is crucial to remaining competitive in today’s marketplace.

“The option to connect to the system via the Internet has proved a major advantage with the increasingly international nature of our business, enabling effective communication across internal departments, with distributors and customers,” says Gordon. “This increased efficiency to our global operations is one of the many ways the system is delivering a real return on our investment.”

Detailed Case History:-

Background

Established over a century ago in Newtownards, Bridgedale Outdoor Ltd is the UK’s number one brand for technical outdoor socks.  The very first Bridgedale socks were designed for the army during WW1 and were only available in three colours and two lengths. Since then Bridgedale has expanded into an international organisation supplying over 40 countries with their well-known technical socks. Today there are over 400 products in the range and Bridgedale socks have become the most trusted socks on the market.

Bridgedale are proud of their market-leading reputation, continually striving to ensure superior product quality and excellent customer service. “We set out to design and manufacture socks that give enduring comfort,” says Gordon Raffan, Director of Bridgedale, “using the most progressive designs and combining natural fibres with man-made through the latest yarn technology. We have a panel of gear testers to help with comfort and durability trials – some of whom walk over 100 miles per week – and our product development team is continually listening to our customers should we need to make any improvements.”

Business issues

As a growing international organisation, Bridgedale needed to replace their ageing systems and platforms. “Our objective was to increase our turnover by over 30% within the next 3 years,” says Gordon, “and we knew that integrating our global operations for a company-wide view would be crucial in gaining accurate business intelligence insight and effective collaboration necessary to achieve this. One of our key requirements was software that enables remote user access via the internet as we knew this would be vital to ensuring effective communication with our subsidiary in South Africa. We also wanted a system that would enable us to drill-down for important data on aspects such as customer performance, as this is often fundamental in meeting customer needs and remaining competitive.”

System selection

Bridgedale spent over eight months investigating business software systems and providers in order to find a solution that would meet their needs. “We weren’t just looking for a system that would meet all our requirements,” explains Gordon, “we also had to find a company with extensive experience in the textile and clothing sectors to ensure a smooth implementation with minimal disruption to the business. It was time well spent though, and I would advise anyone with a software project that finding the right software partner is as important as the product itself.”

Solution

Bridgedale chose specialist software provider Syscom PLC to implement SyscomERP throughout their business. “SyscomERP stood out as the best match for our current and future requirements due to its flexibility and integrated structure,” says Gordon. “The system is easy to use whilst at the same time providing advanced, industry-specific functionality. What’s more, the scalability of the system means it will continue to meet our needs as we grow.” 

With over 30 years experience providing software solutions to the textile, apparel and footwear market place, Syscom’s customer base includes companies from across these sectors and the SyscomERP system includes fully integrated finance, stock, sales, manufacturing and purchasing modules, which have been developed specifically for these industries. “The fact that the system has already been tried and tested within the textile and apparel industries gave us confidence,” says Gordon, “and Syscom’s expertise became evident during the selection process. 

Benefits

Bridgedale have enjoyed a number of benefits following the implementation of SyscomERP, including business-wide integration and collaboration, enhanced access to information and improved customer service. The software has also assisted Bridgedale in improving their environmental footprint.

Business-wide integration and collaboration

SyscomERP offers a complete financials, analytics and business management system that unifies data and processes across an organisation.  Centralised reporting, for example, means information from several departments can be consolidated as required, whilst tools such as workflow management can help ensure the that the right people complete their respective tasks in the appropriate sequence. “Users can be assigned to a particular workflow, each of whom will be notified once the previous user has completed work on the item,” explains John Moses, Managing Director of Syscom PLC. “Which workflows are currently running, their progress and any bottlenecks can be made visible to selected staff throughout the company, allowing for a significant increase in collaboration.”

Fully web-enabled, SyscomERP supports enterprise-wide intranet access to people, documents and information.  “It’s crucial for us to work from a single, integrated platform to reduce the duplication of efforts and inaccuracies in data,” says Gordon. “The option to connect to the system via the Internet has proved a major advantage with the increasingly international nature of our business, enabling effective communication across internal departments, with distributors and customers. This increased efficiency to our global operations is one of the many ways the system is delivering a real return on our investment.”

Enhanced access to information

Designed to be intuitive and user friendly, SyscomERP enables quick and easy access to important business data. “The system offers extensive enquiry functions with a zoom facility for quick, detailed analysis,” says Gordon. “For example, if we wanted to know what fibres had gone into a particular sock we can easily drill down on an item code to see the bill of materials for that product. The information available on the system means we know exactly what we need to order if we want to make more of that particular sock, as well as which suppliers to order from and how long goods will take to arrive. The flexibility of the system also means we can easily create item variants to suit our business needs and customise filter and sorting functions, which we can then save globally or at an individual user level, to make it quicker to analyse the data we want. Perhaps one of the most useful features of the software is the attribute matrix, which simplifies stock control by allowing us to view multiple item identifiers, such as style, colour and size, all at once so we know exactly what’s there.” 

Effective customer service

As with most companies competing on a global scale, Bridgedale’s success is based upon providing quality products backed by efficient and reliable customer service. By providing Bridgedale’s employees with the tools they need to meet customer demand, SyscomERP has proved key in helping Bridgedale retaining their reputation for excellent service.  “Accurate stock control and sales forecasting are essential in ensuring we can deliver the right goods at the right time,” says Gordon. “Being able to have customer information to hand has proved invaluable in building relationships with our customers and distributors, and the efficiencies the system has brought about in our business processes generally has allowed us to concentrate on gathering customer feedback and developing our products so that we can continue to provide customers with the innovative and reliable socks they have come in expect.”

Improved environmental footprint

Bridgedale aims to design and sell products with a proper regard to environmental factors, reducing waste of energy and materials where possible and minimising the impact of the business on the environment. “Firstly, our socks are built to last,” says Gordon. “Bridgedale socks made with WoolFusion come with a 3 year guarantee. We have recently invested in a variable speed compressor to reduce our electricity demand for compressed air by 40% and therefore our carbon footprint. We are now also printing our trade workbooks from recycled paper. Moving to SyscomERP has played a substantial role in helping us to achieve our environmental objectives as it has reduced our paper usage by 50%.”

Future plans

Bridgedale will continue to provide the most advanced and comfortable socks on the market. With multi-lingual and multi-currency options as standard, SyscomERP can continue to unify Bridgedale’s branches as the company expands, and will scale with the business. “We have regular user group meeting with Syscom where we discuss what modifications and additions we would like made to the software,” finishes Gordon, “so the software can be continually developed to support our needs.” 

Syscom PLC

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