GROUP TEST: MULTI-ROOM AUDIO SYSTEMS MAC / iPHONE / iPAD JUNE 2013 $7.95 inc GST facebook.com/ ausmacworld twitter.com/ macworldau 06 MAC IN BUSINESS Work smarter with your Mac 9 772200 237005 Print Post Approved No.PP349181/00252 Post Print REVIEWED: NIKON | BOWERS & WILKINS | DELL 338834_01_Cover.indd8834_01_Cover.indd 1 113/05/133/05/13 111:211:21 AAMM 52 BUSINESS Fruitful partnership Food industry supplier Frutex found that growth presented special challenges, so it turned to SapphireOne for an integrated system covering fi nance, human resources, inventory and customer relationship management. BY ANTHONY CARUANA ho doesn't love the story of a In the early years Frutex used an “It’s super fast. If you’re on a 3G family-owned business that Apple IIc for product lists and looking connection and only have one bar of grows, stays in the family and after inventory. In 1988 Harry Magiros coverage it will still work,” SapphireOne W remains successful for over 40 years? developed a Mac-based system while CEO John Adams says. Even better, a company that took its fi rst at university, which the company ran For sales representatives on the leap into using computers to support with for 10 years. But by 1999, with road this is a great benefi t. They the business in the days of the Apple IIc the Y2K issue, GST and a growing can quickly look at a customer’s and has never abandoned the platform? business, the company needed to sales history, create an order, get That’s what New South Wales-based fi nd a new system to help its growing the customer to sign on the screen Frutex has managed to do. business. That’s when it turned to and send the order back to the offi ce Frutex is a supplier to the bakery and SapphireOne. almost instantly. pastry cook industry. This includes dried SapphireOne is an integrated In addition, SapphireOne now has fruit, tinned fruit, frozen products, fl our, system covering fi nance, human an integrated payment gateway, so chocolate, sugar and other ingredients. resources, inventory and customer customers can pay instantly from their In addition, it makes spices, through relationship management. Designed mobile device. It's also recently added its Spice Masters business, that are to run on the Mac, SapphireOne is a module that supports businesses supplied to well-known brands such as continually being improved. that hire products out to customers. Masterfoods. Frutex also supplies well- When Macworld Australia last looked Mapping support is also integrated, so known cereal brands with the fruits they at SapphireOne a couple of years if someone taps on an address on the add to their cereals. ago, it had introduced integrated VoIP screen, navigation apps automatically Having started in a small store so that customers could be called launch. almost fi ve decades ago, it's now directly from the system. Since then, “We’ve deliberately not gone down a substantial business, employing the application has added many new the app route," Adams says. "We've 120 people. It grew out of a cake features including a richer browser- deliberately gone for a browser-based shop and the business now has the based application that can operate solution. That way you’re not locking a third generation of family members even when network coverage is customer into a specifi c platform." operating it. marginal. Although SapphireOne works straight out of the box, one of the things Adams focuses on is making sure that the system works with the customer’s specifi c needs. “One of the things we’ve done for Frutex, for example, is that we’ve added a map of their warehouses, which are spread over 13 acres. That shows the user where the product is,” he says. The map was loaded as an image and SapphireOne has the intelligence built in to know all of the warehouse bays and rows, so that it can all be put together. This means that an operator can pick the items in an order in the On the road. Frutex sales rep Peter Sharkey takes orders on his iPad from The Sweet Spot Patisserie in the Sydney suburb of Randwick. most effi cient way possible. 338834_52-53_Saphire8834_52-53_Saphire One.inddOne.indd 5252 115/05/135/05/13 33:03:03 PMPM BUSINESS 53 www.macworld.com.au JUNE 2013 Time-saver. An order is processed by scanning a barcode. Manual processes Tracking system. A Frutex employee uses a Bluetooth scanner to scan incoming that used to take an hour, now take a few seconds stock to an iPad running SapphireOne. Harry Magiros is the IT manager at We've deliberately gone Working with SapphireOne, Frutex now Frutex and is one of fi ve siblings of the for a browser-based has a barcode on every invoice. Each current generation of the family. He invoice is scanned and a manifest for was there when the company made solution. That way the truck lists all of the frozen items that the leap from home-grown systems you’re not locking a will be shipped. The manual process – that he designed and created – to customer into a specifi c that used to take close to an hour now SapphireOne. platform takes a few seconds. “In ’99 we looked at commercial “The time savings for our staff from systems because we’d outgrown this process alone are huge” Magiros what I’d done." Magiros says. "We the same time, Telstra’s 3G network says. then looked at all the products on was starting to expand, giving business In many cases, Magiros looks at the market and chose SapphireOne. people a good, reliable connection the business and fi nds a process that The main reason was that they were while on the road. The question then can be made more effi cient and, as local and also because they were dual remained: what was the best way to he has a deep product knowledge of platform – Mac and Windows." use this new capability? SapphireOne, can identify a function When Frutex started using Frutex considered using its website within the application that the business SapphireOne, it ran the software as the gateway from the outside to can use. However, that’s not always the without any customisation, straight the business but decided to work case. out of the box. About three years ago, directly with SapphireOne. The “Sometimes I’ll come up with Magiros started focusing more on software company had already partially an interface or workfl ow that isn’t the family business, having sold his developed the interface Frutex was in the software but would help own company, and initially looked at looking for with another client. Frutex us. SapphireOne will modify their improving workfl ows and procedures. further developed this, and Magiros software to accommodate that,” he “One of the big issues was that we says it allowed sales reps “to very easily says. Depending on the nature of had sales reps all over the country – get all the information on a customer the modifi cation, that update may primarily Sydney but also Melbourne and place the order on the road. By the only be applied to Frutex or, in some and Queensland," he says. "We were time the reps are back in the offi ce, the cases, the change is rolled out to all of trying to streamline the process of order is picked and ready to go." SapphireOne’s customers. ordering. This process means that order It’s tempting to think such a "We tried things like portable fax fulfi lment went from taking two days to comprehensive system might require machines, taking photos of handwritten just a few hours. many weeks of training for users to orders and emailing them back to the Many of the products that Frutex become productive. But Magiros offi ce. They were unreliable. Laptops sells are frozen, which means they says, “I can take a salesperson who were too bulky and lacked battery life. need to be loaded onto trucks at the really doesn't know that much about All of a sudden Apple came up with the last possible moment. The previous our products or customers, give them iPad. That solved a lot of our issues." process required the dispatch team to these tools and have them selling The combination of long battery life, review all of the outgoing orders, one within a couple of days. light weight and good form factor made at a time, and then look for the frozen "SapphireOne stores all of the the iPad a great fi t for Frutex. However, goods by reviewing each line of each information instead of it sitting in the other side of this was that at about order. people’s heads.” C 338834_52-53_Saphire8834_52-53_Saphire One.inddOne.indd 5353 114/05/134/05/13 44:22:22 PMPM.