CAROUSEL LOGISTICS EXCEEDS CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS WITH SNAPFULIL CLOUD WMS

For Carousel, technology is a key pillar of this exceptional service delivery, and is such a vital strength of the business that they have their own in-house developers and technology support team. This team of experts look at how technology can support clients through a reliable, trusted and easy-to-use platform that gives the client control and visibility over their logistics.  

In addition to a number of services, such as time specified and reverse logistics, out of hours deliveries and consolidation solutions, Carousel currently operates a total of four warehouses comprising 120,000 sq ft of space. With client needs and added value top of the agenda for Carousel, the company wanted to ensure they had a scalable and flexible warehouse management system that would support continued growth.  

The challenge

For Carousel, the most important thing for was ensuring they continue to provide a best-in-class solution for clients and had the right technology in place to support this. Previously, Carousel had employed an in-house, custom warehouse management system and while this approach offered a high degree of flexibility for its personalised client solutions, they looked at what other best of breed WMS systems could also offer.

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As the business continues to expand its client portfolio and build internal resource, Carousel was also looking for a solution that could easily be rolled out across its multiple locations without the need for additional hardware infrastructure.

Michael Martin, Carousel’s Client Relationship Director says: “When it comes to our client, keeping their customers satisfied, and delighted even, is what really matter to their business. Therefore when we build a logistics solution for our client, our focus is ‘What does exceptional customer service look like?’ Selecting and building a solution for Carousel is just the same – we wanted a technology solution that enables us to deliver outstanding service for our clients.”

Nick Alsop, Carousel Head of IT commented: “As a multi-site operation, and a company that looks to its partners to deliver both innovative and sustainable solutions, we wanted to avoid having to install hardware and software in every location and all the management time that entails. We therefore decided to look for a cloud-based solution from a very credible partner in Snapfulfil.”

The solution

Carousel went out to market and talked to around five possible WMS providers. While a number of them offered systems which could be deployed in the cloud, only Snapfulfil was designed specifically for this purpose.

Looking for a solution which enables Carousel to be proactive and flexible to their client needs, fast-paced business changes and challenges, a Software as a Service model with the benefits of Snapfulfil’s fully managed service proved extremely attractive.

Nick Alsop says: “We credit ourselves on reacting quickly to support our clients, especially as their customers have high expectations in terms of responsiveness - and again, for Carousel, this is no different in what we look for in a partner. Snapfulfil’s service with behind the scenes management and maintenance gives us greater reliability.

“The model also allows us to flex up and down in line with seasonal peaks – we got an extra 10 RF guns in the run up to Christmas and were able to revert back to our usual levels afterwards.”

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The implementation

While Snapfulfil has the ability to be implemented in as little as 45 days, Carousel took the decision to migrate every client individually and has worked closely with Snapfulfil to develop structured migration plans, along with robust testing and validation for each customer.

Nick Alsop says: “We are not a one-size-fits-all, ‘traditional’ logistics company and we pride ourselves on delivering highly personalised solutions. The whole pre-production piece is really important to us and we use Snapfulfil’s test environment to make sure the WMS is correctly configured and working properly for every client before it goes live.

“The first few clients we migrated to Snapfulfil we made sure we did on a Friday to minimise the risk of any disruption but quickly realised that this wasn’t necessary and we’re now able to transition a client to Snapfulfil during operating hours without missing a beat. In one case, on the first day of migrating a customer to Snapfulfil, we did 120% of the largest order day they’d ever done before.”

Benefits

Nick Alsop says: “Efficiency wasn’t the key driver for implementing a new WMS – the operation ran smoothly with the old system. Implementing Snapfulfil was a strategic decision in line with our commitment to providing innovative, scalable solutions which help our clients deliver the best possible service to their customers.

“It also allows us to understand how each operation is performing in further detail – for example, now we can quickly assess whether we’re achieving a certain pick rate for a particular client, and can therefore be much more accurate in predicting how much resource is required during peak.”

The future

While the implementation of Snapfulfil has been done over a lengthy time period in line with the specific requirements of Carousel’s business, this is nearing completion and Carousel is already exploring further potential opportunities.

Nick Alsop concludes: “Snapfulfil have delivered everything they promised and proven themselves to be a valuable business partner. We look forward to finding out what else the system can do, for example, in terms of enhanced reporting capabilities which will add even further value to our clients’ solutions.”