Integration software drives efficiency at Stapleton’s Tyres Customer Story Thanks to IBS Integrator, sharing information between legacy systems and newer applications has been made faster, easier and more consistent for Stapleton’s Tyres. Like many companies, Stapleton’s Tyres runs key business applications on a system that has been in place for many years and holds much of the company’s critical customer and operational information. As new applications are added to this IT infrastructure, the need to access, share and standardize this legacy information is essential for a continued smooth-running business.
Stapleton’s Tyres, founded in 1937, is the UK’s largest wholesaler of tyres to car dealerships and franchises, as well as retail outlets and garages. The company also has more than 50 of its own retail outlets in southeast England, servicing private and commercial customers.
Complicated processes made simple
Many of the company’s key business applications, such as warehousing, inventory and invoicing, run on a UNIX-based system that has been in place for many years. Andy Scaplehorn, Stapleton’s Tyres IT Manager, explains, “The UNIX systems have served us well and we have seen no reason to replace them. However, more recently we have implemented Oracle-based applications for specific functionality, such as customer relationship management and financials, and this generated an increased need to share information between old and new systems.”
He continues, “Each time we needed to export information from the legacy systems to the new applications, somebody had to develop the interface required to do this. These interfaces took a lot of time to develop and were almost impossible to support, particularly older ones developed by people who had since left the company. We decided we needed modern integration tools that would allow us to move data between applications in a standard and consistent manner, rather than having to write a new interface from scratch each time.”
After some research, and despite not being an IBS Enterprise customer, Stapleton’s Tyres selected IBS Integrator. He explains, “IBS Integrator appeared to be a hugely powerful and flexible system that would be the answer to our problems. After some initial training, IBS allowed us to trial the product and they have since been very responsive and helpful in ensuring we get the most from the system. The effect of the product on our company was fast and dramatic!”
Speedy development
IBS Integrator is a flexible and easy-to-use business and application integration tool that can deliver significant profitability and efficiency benefits throughout an organization. Its application has no boundaries, with hundreds of companies around the world using the product to deliver seamless solutions to specific business problems.
The product can be implemented by both IBS and non-IBS ERP software customers and provides one of the industry’s most powerful and deployable integration tools for any hardware and operating system platforms.
The Java-based application has an intuitive GUI interface. “It is very easy to use and anyone with minimal Java experience can use it effectively very quickly,” Scaplehorn says.
Scaplehorn explains that Stapleton’s Tyres was particularly impressed with the sheer speed of development. He explains, “An interface, which used to take days to develop can now be put together in less than half a day. For example, in a matter of hours, we created an interface that automates our invoice runs and notifies customers when deliveries will happen. This was easy to create, yet delivers significant advantages for our business.”
Centralized information
The main benefit to Stapleton’s Tyres is that key account information is now held centrally and can be easily added or changed. “Previously, if we had to make any customer account changes, this would have to be done for each system. Using IBS Integrator, we are now able to make these changes centrally and they automatically update the rest of the applications. Also, if any errors occur, we now only have to look at the central location to find them. This alone saves us many hours of work,” he says.
IBS Integrator is also being used to generate more and better reports for the company. Scaplehorn explains, “Information can be gathered from various systems and used to automatically populate key Excel reports. These cover many areas throughout the business, including stock levels, discrepancies and key account information. Having these reports available at any time to give a real-time view of the business is a major benefit and is particularly appreciated by senior management.”
Scaplehorn concludes, “IBS Integrator has added at least five years to the life of our legacy systems. We have completed a number of interfaces and are working on many more. IBS Integrator is a hugely versatile application that has been able to deliver a solution for pretty much anything that has been requested. IBS Integrator has breathed new life into our IT systems, helping us to create fully integrated operations in a standard format with high visibility and real-time data.”
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