Maclean’s Highland Bakery has increased sales and improved availability for its contract with Tesco after deploying GXS’s Intelligent Web Forms. The company has a team of 130 staff in the north of Scotland which produces a range of bakery products for its own shops, wholesale customers and international customers.
Tesco is one of the company’s key accounts. It began by supplying a local store with freshly baked products on a daily basis.
Maclean’s would visit the store each day to find out what products had been sold and then create a new order for the following day.
This system worked well with one store, but Mclean’s soon supplied six stores in the Scottish highlands and it became unfeasible to visit each store on a daily basis.
“Servicing stores across the highlands with fresh bakery products can be quite challenging and demanding,” says managing director Lewis Maclean.
The company realised it needed a system that would allow each Tesco store to place an order each day telling Maclean’s which products they required.
To streamline the ordering process, Maclean’s deployed GXS’ Intelligent Web Forms, part of the GXS Trading Grid.
“I was very sceptical at the beginning as it was actually me that really did the ordering and I thought no one could do it better than myself, but having Tesco’s orders online everyday has helped us really drive our business forward.
“Taking on new stores is not a new problem at all; it just gets fed into the system.”
Stores can now log on and send an order form to Maclean’s bakery each day to ensure they are stocked with the correct products at the correct time.
This has helped the company better plan its production which has enabled it to provide a more consistent product and increased freshness.
Maclean adds: “I would like to think having the system has helped us grow our business with Tesco. It’s given us more confidence.”
He also admits that the system can in fact do the ordering better than him.
