Mad Group simplify ordering and improve stock management with EazyStock
Mad-HQ is a family business supplying fitness, health and well-being equipment across a range of disciplines. Since 1923, they have been supplying fitness, yoga, and Pilates equipment both nationally and internationally from their base in Worcestershire in the UK. Their brands include Fitness-Mad, Yoga-Mad, Pilates-Mad, Align-Pilates and BBE Britannia Boxing.
As well as supplying their own brands, they also distribute ToeSox, Tavi, Base 33, Donic Schildkrot, Talbot Torro, Shildkrot FunSports and Rehband.
The challenge
Mad Group were changing their ERP system to Microsoft Business Central from Dynamics Nav. As a significant cost was involved in connecting their incumbent system to the new ERP, they saw an opportunity to review their options to manage their thousands of SKUs in multiple colours and sizes. Mad Group’s MD remembered seeing EazyStock at a Microsoft NAV open day; the rest is history.
The solution
Transparency of data was essential to Mad Group, and the level of information available in EazyStock was one of the reasons they chose the platform.
While the level of data some systems provide can feel overwhelming, EazyStock allows the user to customise columns and views to see the information they need when they need it and prevent information overload.
“Then you also have the flexibility to go back and review things and see all this information in one place,” says Aimi Beasley from Mad Group, who, as the purchasing manager, does the majority of purchasing.
“You might not know what you’re looking for or might not need it at that time, but you’ll need it at some point.”
The configuration options in EazyStock allow Aimi to mine down into the data to see which customers have ordered items on each sales order which makes it really clear to see the demand for each line.
“Using EazyStock, I can see whether one customer is ordering 100 items or if 100 customers are ordering one item. Before, I had to flip between our order and purchasing systems, which is more time-consuming.”
Another feature Aimi uses frequently is stock prediction analysis, which allows her to see whether stock is being held at the optimal level. If stock levels are above or below the optimal level, then Aimi can look at why that’s happening and the best solution.
“EazyStock’s item alerts will also tell you the status of your orders, such as if something is arriving late or there’s been an unusually large order. You can then do whatever you need to mitigate the issue.”
Another benefit of using EazyStock is the efficiency of day-to-day ordering, as Aimi explains. “With our old system, doing the purchasing on my own would have been quite stressful. Managing the ordering by myself is much easier since we’ve been using EazyStock.”
As an EazyStock customer, Mad Group have a dedicated customer success manager who is there to help anytime, not just during onboarding. Whenever Aimi needs anything, even if it’s something she’s already been shown, the team is happy to explain again.
“The service from the Customer Success team has been really good. Whenever I’ve had a question for Peter, Mark or Cristina, they’ve answered. Even if they cannot give an answer immediately, they will go and get someone who knows the answer to deal with it. Their communication skills are brilliant.
“They will sit on a call and explain it again or send an email with instructions so I can do it myself. They never get cross with me, even if I ask them the same thing. Their support is brilliant.”
The results
Using EazyStock means Aimi and Mad Group can work more efficiently compared to their old system, and Aimi recommends that anyone using spreadsheets consider modernising their process by using EazyStock.
“EazyStock has really saved me time, and anyone using spreadsheets will definitely find it saves them so much time. For something like this, it’s not really possible to use a spreadsheet.
“You have to feed in what you’ve got in stock, what you’ve got coming in, and what you’ve got waiting to go out the door. You’ve also got to work out how many you’ve sold and then sort of guess how many you will sell next month. How do you do that using spreadsheets?”
Being able to monitor the service level is also a helpful KPI for Mad Group, as they can see whether orders have gone out straight away or if there have been any delays. This allows Aimi to evaluate how Mad Group is purchasing rather than just placing orders.
“Our other system couldn’t do this,” says Aimi. “There wasn’t a way to find out if you bought something at the right time or if we should have waited, for example.”
As Mad Group has quite a small warehouse, they aim to have as much stock as possible coming in and out within its lead time without running out. For example, items with lead times of 60 days need to be in and out within those 60 days. They couldn’t report on this before, but now they can see that 93% of goods are within their lead times thanks to EazyStock.
EazyStock’s reports show popular items and sales cycles and flag items the system thinks are obsolete or excess stock where sales are low. This allows Aimi to continue to improve the stock turnover.
