Gordon & MacPhail, like many producers within the whisky industry, were running their operations on various disparate systems which offered little to no integration. These systems were siloed and crippled by poor visibility, resulting in a real lack of control across the business.
The company was using Epicor Tropos to manage distilling and bottling, alongside Cask Manager, Maginus for warehouse and distribution, Dream and Excel for Finance alongside a whole host of point solutions to cover specific business functions. While effective individually, together, they offered little to no integration, were aging solutions that lacked modern functionality, heavily manual and relied on extensive customisation to work effectively. As a result, a lot of critical business information was being lost.
Finance:
• Lack of visibility into financial function which impacted the quality of the financial reporting.
• Accounts were single dimension and relied heavily upon Excel to report on separate business units.
Sales / Commercial:
• Challenges around real-time visibility of stock and traceability of high value casks.
• There was no CRM system, no single method of recording engagement with their customers.
Supply chain:
• Stock checking was challenging.
• Demand forecasting was difficult.
• Lead times for customer orders were difficult to guarantee.
• Warehouse was running manually with no full traceability of what is picked, packed and despatched.
The aim of the IFS Applications 10 implementation project was to simplify Gordon & MacPhail’s systems landscape to allow them to achieve greater control, visibility and insight into their business.
Initially, we spent a lot of time working alongside Gordon & MacPhail conducting workshops to allow us to fully understand their operational processes. We engaged a Business information Review which examined every aspect
of their business, all key functions and processes in fine detail before using this information to create a high-level
solution design to fit their exact requirements.
We developed a bespoke solution, based on IFS Applications 10, which will provide Gordon & MacPhail with full
control over and real-time visibility into their operations. The majority of key business operations will be brought
into IFS as part of their initial implementation, including; Finance; Sales; Purchasing; Inventory; Manufacturing; CRM and Document Management to deliver a single solution that provides enhanced visibility, easier reporting, streamlined processes and greater operational efficiency, and ultimately, greater control.
Implementing IFS not only integrated all operational functions into a single platform, but most importantly, it has
capability out-of-the-box to enable strong financial reporting. Of particular importance for Gordon & MacPhail is the need for regulatory compliance. As is standard protocol for any company producing goods which are subject to tax duty, there are many HMRC regulations that must be adhered to. It is vital that whisky manufacturer can illustrate that it can control and track every single litre of alcohol at any one moment throughout the production process – from maturation, to bottling, to dispatching. Our IFS solution has ensured that this is all fully visible and traceable across the business, making the completion of W1 and W5D forms much more straightforward.
We also implemented ACQUIRE, our data capture software solution to simplify and streamline Gordon & MacPhail’s warehousing, and inventory management processes. Fully integrating with IFS, ACQUIRE allows for the automation of receipt, inspection, packing and all other aspects of warehousing and shop floor operations. By
removing the need to rely on manual processes and providing real-time stock traceability, value and availability, ACQUIRE has dramatically improved business operations and efficiency.
The project was delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic which clearly presented additional challenges. The project delivery team had never met face-to-face until after the solution had gone live in January 2022. All kick-off meetings were conducted on-line which meant that there had to be clear guidelines around roles and responsibilities to ensure there was no dubiety around who was responsible for what. Cooper Software also subcontracted an IFS Finance consultant to Gordon & MacPhail for 6 months to provide expert guidance around the finance modules as this was a critical area of the implementation that required specialist knowledge to ensure the processes were developed and delivered in the best way for the business.
Since implementing IFS Applications 10, Gordon & MacPhail are benefitting from a unified modern and user-friendly solution that meets both their current and future needs, with the agility and flexibility to adapt and scale to stay ahead in changing environments.
Gordon & MacPhail have enjoyed several benefits across the business, namely:
• A fully integrated solution linking key operational processes
• Improved efficiency
• Enhanced reporting from all areas of the business
• Greater visibility, traceability and control over stock
• Improved forecasting, manufacturing, scheduling and planning
• A full CRM function to allow the sales team to track customer interactions
Gordon & MacPhail is a family-owned premium spirits company based in Elgin, Scotland. Owner of Scotch whisky
distilleries, Benromach and The Cairn, Gordon & MacPhail is also a Scotch whisky maturation expert, the owner of
Scottish Gin brand, Red Door and the operator of a wholesale business in the UK selling premium Scotch whiskies
and spirits, along with a high-quality retail outlet.
The company owns Benromach Distillery located in Forres in Moray and work commenced in July 2020 on the
company’s second distillery, overlooking the River Spey towards the Cairngorms.