Software for rent is grocer's choice

By ADAM GIFFORD

Independent national grocery wholesaler Rattrays Wholesale has bought an accounting, distribution and e-commerce system from exo-net international, to be delivered remotely by Unisys ASP Services.

It is the first ASP (application service provider) sale exo-net has secured since passing the Unisys certification, although some earlier customers had beta-tested the new "apps on tap" delivery model.

Rattrays' general manager Chris Wheeler said the wholesaler's business has until now been run by Progressive Enterprises' SAP system.

When Progressive sold Rattrays to investment company Infogate last year, the search was on for a replacement.

The company looked at Great Plains, Navision and a custom solution from Infinity Solutions.

The ASP option appealed to Rattrays because it wanted to spend on its core business - distribution of food products - rather than on IT infrastructure.

Rattrays has 10,000 customers, about 20,000 stock items and handles between 9500 and 13,000 invoices a week. Its turnover is $120 million a year.

"We are looking to create value-add services. Exo-net will allow us to deliver timely research to brand owners on things like penetration and market share," Mr Wheeler said.

While that information is available for retail sales from scan data, it has previously been unavailable for the food service sector - hospitals, restaurants and rest-homes. The financial modules should be live by August 1, with distribution modules following. Mr Wheeler said paying for the software by a monthly fee brought total cost of ownership savings of about 30 per cent.

The applications will be delivered to Rattrays' warehouses in Auckland, Whangarei, Hastings, Christchurch, Dunedin and Nelson by frame relay.

Mr Wheeler said the fact that exo-net was a fully web-based application was important, because there was no need to buy Citrix licences - a significant fixed cost for many remotely delivered applications.

Exo-net director David McKee-Wright said that by building a genuine three-tier architecture, exo-net had increased its competitiveness. Exo-net software is now used by more than 1000 companies in New Zealand, ranging from single users to 150 user sites, and interest is growing in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Britain.