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Prides Corner Farms Took a Giant Leap Forward
In 2015, Prides Corner Farms launched a strategy to run lean and mean. They revolutionized how they harvest crops, get them to the loading dock and out the door
“It was revolutionary,” said Christian Joseph, IT Manager of Prides Corner Farms. “It took a lot of effort, with everybody on deck. We had consultants that got us to third base, as we call it. Between third and home was a long, long way. But we’ve got it now. We fine-tuned it. It’s amazing what it does, and it’s a testament to everyone’s hard work and effort in making it a reality.”
As part of this strategy, in 2018 the nursery implemented Microsoft NAV 2017 and TruckStops, a logistics and route optimization package. This combination of technologies had a significant impact on their operations. For example, they improved logistics and can now ship products more efficiently. And they relieved salespeople of logistics-related tasks that often consumed half of their time.
Upgrading to NAV also helped them with their goal of embracing “live” inventory. With NAV 2017, they have processes and protocols in place for making corrections as needed throughout the day or week, so salespeople know what’s actually in the field. In addition, their team uses the NAV mobile application on their smartphones to take counts and update inventory availability and plant heights.
“We are a progressive company. Wedon’t stop developing; we don’t stopinnovating. Enavate does a fantastic jobof meeting our business needs at anylevel. Though they didn’t do theimplementation, they’ve been able tojump in and pick up where things left off.We feel very comfortable throwinganything at them”
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Christian Joseph
IT Manager of Prides CornerFarmsWhat Is It Like to Work with Enavate?
Immediate Response During Peak Season
The nursery needed a partner that could be responsive during seasonal peaks and on deck in the off-season to help with business development initiatives. During seasonal peaks, or “shipping season,” the company is in break-fix mode. “It’s a big engine,” Joseph said. “We must have all the gears turning to make things happen, and we can’t have downtime. Enavate is aware of this. They recognize that we need to jump on something right away if something goes wrong. It’s been a very stable application, but if there’s a big “gotcha,” we call Enavate, and they’re right on it.” Once the nursery is past the peak season, they create a priority list for new initiatives and criticalities for their business model to collaborate on with Enavate.
A Trusted Advisor for Today and What’s Next
Enavate has weekly status meetings with Prides Corner Farms to tackle various projects and discuss what’s been completed, how it’s going, what they currently need, what’s coming up and more (including lighthearted discussions about tomato pruning techniques). “We have serious roles here, but at the same time, we enjoy levity,” Joseph said. “We grow plants. It’s a lot of fun to look out the door and see these amazing things go out the door and into our truck. It puts things in perspective.” The weekly meetings are critical for Prides Corner Farms to stay on track, and they consider having a dedicated project manager on Enavate’s side very important in helping them reach their goals.
How Enavate Delivered Business Value
With this partnership, the nursery can better realize its NAV system’s full potential. The relationship also provides the on-going support they need to tackle new projects on their to-do list.
Innovating through Customizations
Prides Corner Farms requires some very complex customizations to run its operations efficiently. They appreciate that Enavate barely bats an eye at these challenges. For example, the nursery has a custom racking algorithm critical to its business model. Without it, they wouldn’t be nearly as efficient in getting their products out the door. But the algorithm is complex. Still, Enavate is right there with them as they continually evolve the algorithm. “They’re not afraid to look at it, to understand it and what we want to consider changing to optimize how we process shipments in the loading dock,” Joseph said. Another customization is retail tagging, a vital component of the nursery’s customer satisfaction. Prides Corner Farms offers retail tagging for the retail garden center customers with their unique pricing. Enavate has worked with them on additions and changes to accomplish this complex customization.
Efficiency through Workflow Improvements
Working with Enavate, the nursery has made workflow improvements that resulted in time and cost savings. For example, the customized view of it’s inventory fell out of sync with allocations to the sales orders. Enavate was able to identify the underlying issue and corrected it quickly. This correction allowed the sales teams to confidently sell and ship what is truly available. This was a huge workflow improvement for Prides Corner Farms, which ships over 70 tractor trailer trucks a day during the peak shipping season
How Enavate Delivered Business Value
Improving and Integrating eCommerce
Formerly, Prides Corner Farms couldn’t use the ecommerce portal to its full capacity. This meant spending more time sending and managing emails and working in Excel. However, over the past several years, their eCommerce platform has become a more significant business opportunity. But it’s also become more complicated as they’ve taken on new partners with new needs. “We have to integrate those new demands not only with the ERP but with our business workflow,” Joseph said. “It’s a combination of understanding what the customer wants and needs and having our solution provider, Enavate, weave that into our business model. It’s been working very well. They’ve been very responsive to ensure we’re on top of our needs there.”
Implementing Automation Enhancements
Since partnering with Enavate, Prides Corner Farms has implemented automation that helps them save substantial time and resources. They are currently buttoning up a tax solution implementation (Avalara) which needs to be integrated with NAV. The team says that Enavate has been instrumental in streamlining this critical process, as they ship products to different states with different tax considerations.
A Partnership that keeps growing
“We’ve got a wonderful support team at Enavate. It’s been an ideal fit. We have a lot of customizations in our business model, and Enavate’s done a great job of understanding our business needs, taking the bull by the horns and making it come to fruition. It’s been seamless. I pick up the phone; whether it’s a “gotcha” that stops a process that we have to jump on, or we’ve got to get something new in place right in the middle of the stream of our business operations … Enavate’s been a great partner for us.”
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