Carters

Today’s competitive business environment means companies must constantly evolve to stay ahead of the competition. For Carters, retaining their place at the forefront of the building industry requires a distribution and financial system that can provide up-to-date product line and general ledger information at the touch of a button.

Their system, which integrates point of sale, inventory, and general ledger data, was developed and implemented by Quanta Systems, a company specialising in customised package software solutions for Australian and New Zealand businesses.

“We move quickly as a company, and an integrated system has been invaluable for its ease of access to information,” explains Mike Lambert, Carters IT Manager. “We’ve got 36 branches across New Zealand , with a total of 700 users. So the system is utilised all day, every day. It’s the backbone of the company.”

Mike says one of the good things about the project was the fact that the system was rolled out to all the branches very quickly and smoothly.

“Often people who come to work at Carters have never worked with a system that is totally integrated. They think it can’t be done. Once they come here they can’t believe how much better it is.”

He explains that the beauty of an integrated system is being able to track product movement from the point of sale backwards. “If it’s all batched up separately you don’t have that visibility.”

Another bonus is that the data provides a comprehensive base for research for years to come. Carters’ data has now become a very powerful tool for analysing trends.

An example of the ongoing improvements Quanta are continually providing for the Carters system is a new module for their Business-to-Business Web. Customers are able to place orders and check account information via the internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We’ve been constantly evolving,” adds Mike. “We don’t stay still for long. Because Quanta are on hand we can give them a call and say ‘this is what we want’ and they’ll do it.”

The Quanta system is developed using Genero, an XML-based development language and application server environment. Genero’s light bandwidth make online, regionally dispersed systems, like Carters a functional reality. Genero permits multi-database applications to be written from one application source reducing software maintenance cost. Genero also include a choice of application clients so you can run on Windows or browser based ensuring flexibility in numerous deployment settings.

Quanta has implementations of Quanta’s Retail, Distribution and Financial system in New Zealand, Australia and China.