Platform Upgrade Modernizes Operations—Boosting Customer Service, Talent Retention, and Sales
James Latham, one of the UK and Ireland’s largest independent distributors of timber, panels, and decorative surfaces, is as forward-thinking today as it was nearly three centuries ago. With a history dating back to 1757, the company is well-established and well-regarded, recognised for sustainability and trusted service for trade customers.
With the timber industry susceptible to fluctuating market prices and strained supply lines, James Latham relies on technology to minimize the impact of outside factors and help ensure the company’s 12 depots have the right products at the right time.
Sophie Trabucchi, IT Manager for James Latham, explains how a long-standing reliance on Epicor BisTrack is critical to business success and why the company is one of the first to take advantage of new releases—staying ahead of the game with ERP innovations.
“We’ve been an Epicor customer for more than 20 years and see how the company is investing in the elements that are important to our business: AI, business intelligence, and digital transformation,” Trabucchi says.
James Latham decided to migrate their ROI depot locations to the latest version of Epicor BisTrack first, essentially conducting a test case and creating a blueprint before moving to other locations. With the test environment in situ, users within sales, purchasing, and transport were encouraged to replicate as much daily work as possible to get familiar with the updated version of BisTrack.
Being current on Epicor BisTrack opens up the ability to do so much more with three big platform advantages: speed, better ways to use intelligence, and new efficiencies in the warehouse, across sales, and with customer management.
“Our testing environment combined with support from Epicor paid dividends when we migrated, as our integration was quite complex with extensive imports,” explains Trabucchi. “We took lessons learned from the initial Ireland migration to make the company-wide move even faster.” James Latham wanted users on a new version of BisTrack to tap into the latest and greatest functionality, including Epicor Warehouse Management and Epicor Commerce. “Helping our employees work smarter, not harder, is what it’s all about,” Trabucchi adds. *Being current on Epicor BisTrack opens up the ability to do so much more with three big platform advantages: speed, better ways to use intelligence, and new efficiencies in the warehouse, across sales, and with customer management.”
Epicor Warehouse Management was a key requirement as the company had a paper-based system in place, which stakeholders were eager to change. Working in the expansive warehouse could be daunting, requiring extensive on-site experience to correctly identify different species of wood and more than 3,000 types of panels. Not to mention, newly hired employees had expectations for modern, user-friendly technology as part of the job.
“In speaking with other Epicor customers, they reported significant savings on stock losses within the first six months due to fewer returns,” Trabucchi continues. “That was a huge driver for us, as our customer service goal is to eliminate the number of inventory mispicks and returns.”
Making our employees’ jobs easier makes our company a better place to be. Epicor Warehouse Management has transformed how we work operationally, giving employees increased pride in how efficiently the warehouse is run. The real ROI is that our employees are happy and more productive.
James Latham wanted users to be part of the modernisation journey to see the value, which Trabucchi says happened immediately. Employees did scenario testing with the warehouse handhelds to get used to scanning and stocking items—they were able to identify the right products in an instant.
“Making our employees’ jobs easier makes our company a better place to be,” she says. “Epicor Warehouse Management is transforming how we work operationally, giving employees increased pride in how efficiently the warehouse is run. The real ROI is that our employees are happy and more productive.” Trabucchi continues, “Customer service is one of our top priorities; we want to give customers the best service. In this ‘Amazon world,’ next-day delivery is standard, and having Epicor Warehouse Management will help us deliver exceptional customer service operationally.”
James Latham is also exploring how to leverage the capabilities of Epicor EDI. Currently, they use it to send customer invoices and supplier purchase orders, helps to reduce paper usage, improve data accuracy, and eliminate the time and effort required for rekeying data. Trabucchi notes, “The EDI interoperable data piece is something I think is key to driving efficiencies and aligns with our customer service goals.”
James Latham integrated Epicor Commerce into BisTrack to elevate customer account management, providing instant mobile access to orders, shipping status, and payments. Starting with just one site initially, the plan is to deploy Epicor Commerce across the numerous Latham sites. With integrated Epicor Commerce, users can easily search for products. Information is grouped by category with supporting imagery, providing a fast path to orders—freeing the sales team to work on other activities and supporting customer order placement outside of core business hours.
“We sell a vast array of products, and customers may not be familiar with all we offer,” Trabucchi explains. “Giving customers a connected shopping experience and a complete online catalog opens up new sales opportunities and better ways to engage with customers.”
Organisationally, James Latham can’t get enough of BisTrack dashboards and reports, crediting the flexible and dynamic nature of BisTrack SmartViews for real-time business visibility. The company has dashboards for every type of job, such as operations and purchasing, allowing employees to use data to support their roles best. For example, sales reps know which customers haven’t been active within a certain amount of time; operations know the exact amount of volume remaining on the lorry; and financial controllers know how the business is performing against the budget.
Sustainability is a core value for James Latham, and it’s a topic they are deeply passionate about. The James Latham environmental team, in collaboration with the University of Bangor, developed a carbon calculator that reports the biogenic carbon of the product as well as the overall carbon footprint, including its manufacture. Customers can request carbon data for a wide range of timber-based products they purchase, with the data shown on quotes and invoices upon request—generated by reports within BisTrack.
Trabucchi is looking ahead and planning to deploy Epicor Grow to allow users the ability to create their own reports without help from IT. “Epicor is invested in helping customers use intelligence in new ways and we are just getting started using AI and BI as a competitive advantage.”
The trust and mutual respect between James Latham and Epicor run deep, with Trabucchi recognising the importance of both sides working towards the same objectives. She shares, “Epicor is aligned with what want to achieve as a business and solicits customer feedback about how to evolve BisTrack and then takes action—exactly what you want from a supplier.”
The benefits of moving to the new BisTrack release are far-reaching, with James Latham employees finding the platform easy to use and able to find information with improved speed and accuracy. “BisTrack helps us work smarter together, allowing the sales team to focus on selling, warehouse staff to be more efficient, and customers to have a more positive and personal experience. Everyone wins,” summarises Trabucchi.
