Vacu Vin
Case Study: Vacu Vin
Industry: Consumer Products
Solution: Exact Globe / Exact Synergy
Country: Netherlands
About The Company
Vacu Vin was established in 1986 when Bernd Schneider came up with the Vacuum Wine Saver, a device to preserve opened bottles of wine. Today Vacu Vin sells dozens of innovative products in the area of wining, dining and cooling. Many more products can be expected: on the Dutch TV show ‘The Best Idea in The Netherlands’, Vacu Vin is continuously in search of pioneering ideas. Besides the head office in Delft, the company has branches in Belgium, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, Canada and the US each with its own sales office. It is a real family business: founder Bernd Schneider works together with his sons Patrick and Stephan
The Situation
Patrick Schneider, president and CEO of the family business and son of Vacu Vin founder Bernd Schneider, explains, “We have been a satisfied Exact for DOS customer from the very beginning, and we continued using it for a long time. But after a while you notice that the old DOS software is rather ‘primitive’. We started looking for a new product, In the end we chose Exact Globe and Exact Synergy, not only due to the nice appearance and our positive experiences with Exact, but also for financial reasons.”
The Solution
Vacu Vin uses nearly all the Exact Globe and Exact Synergy modules, supplemented with the Exact Easy Access Warehouse solution. According to Schneider, “The migration took some time, and it was not entirely effortless. We are clearly convinced that Exact Globe works better than Exact for DOS. A lot has changed in the years leading up to the migration, however. We’ve learned a lot since implementing Exact Globe and Exact Synergy. And in that time Exact has learned a lot as well. Exact listens to its customers much
better now.”
“Compared to Exact for DOS,” Schneider adds, “we particularly notice the time gain. Consider our logistic processes for example. Only our branches in Great Britain and Switzerland have their own inventory; all the other countries keep their inventory in Delft where CombiWerk assembles our products. This is a sheltered workshop studio for the mentally and physically challenged. “That’s why we have raw materials and semi-manufactured articles in stock, as well as finished products. In the past we received orders from our various branches using different software packages. We then had to enter these orders into our own system. Now all our countries work with the same system and double work has become a thing of the past.”
After the implementation of Exact Globe, Vacu Vin turned its focus toward Exact Synergy. “Worldwide we have about 100 employees. Nearly everyone with a PC now uses both software packages. In project planning, we use Exact Synergy primarily for developing and introducing new products. We make this process accessible to the entire organization, speeding up the development process and
getting our products on the market sooner. Our people will gradually have to start using Exact Synergy more intensively so that everyone also has insight into document flows and workflow.”
Benefits and Results
“The most important gain over the past few years with Exact Globe and Exact Synergy is that everyone immediately sees the information that we make available,” says Schneider. “At our head office we compare the various branches’ achievements in an unambiguous manner and the divisions themselves also have much more insight into the direction the business is going. Furthermore, the information is more reliable because we work with the same
software throughout the entire organization.” This improvement corresponds well with Vacu Vin’s ambitious plans which also include a new house style. “Today an illuminated sign with our new logo is being placed on the front of the head office. We definitely have a lot of ambition and a wealth of innovative ideas. With the current IT solution, we can act quickly and effectively,” he concludes.
“The most important gain over the past few years with Exact Globe and Exact Synergy is that everyone immediately sees the information that we make available.”
Patrick Schneider, President and CEO
Vacu Vin B. V.
