SAGA Sciences is the parent company of award-winning sport supplement brands PharmaFreak™ and SD Pharmaceuticals™. They are a company committed to serving a variety of health advocates and enthusiasts, ranging from professional athletes, health and wellness specialists to individuals interested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Located in Vancouver, Canada, Saga Sciences has been in operation since 2008, employs around 25 people and houses 180 SKU’s. The company takes orders via email and phone and has around 50 customers in their database but is growing quickly.
SAGA Sciences does not house their own inventory, instead they have four manufacturing plants that manufacture and ship directly to the customer. With sales in Canada, the United States and Internationally, SAGA Sciences sells to retailers and distribution companies.
As a growing company, SAGA Sciences faced many issues while using manual processes. Their current processes needed to be updated and automated in order to facilitate growth. When it came to inventory management, the company was only using Excel spreadsheets to track the data which simply wasn’t working for them as it became a tedious and time-consuming task. Whenever an order was shipped out of one of their manufacturing warehouses, their current software couldn’t automatically show the change in inventory levels, requiring an employee to enter that data manually.
Not being able to view live inventory from the warehouses also meant that the company was unable to know when the correct time would be to issue a new purchase order. They were left guessing when to order which resulted in either having too much or not enough. SAGA Sciences had data stored on their current system but did not feel comfortable about the level of safety. It was simple for the file to become corrupt which meant they could lose everything, and this was not a chance the company was willing to take.
SAGA Sciences also faced a disconnect between systems. They were using Sage for accounting purposes, Salesforce for sales and manually using spreadsheets for everything else. This created a lot of confusion and couldn’t give them insight into company operations.
SAGA Sciences knew they needed to explore solutions that could handle all their challenges and allow them to grow as a business. Melanie Beckett, Assistant Director of Operations was the lead on the software search and took her time researching for the right ERP system. After looking around, Melanie came across Blue Link’s website and while looking through demo videos and informational resources, Melanie decided to reach out to see for herself if the software was going to be a good fit.
After initial discussions with Blue Link, it was confirmed that SAGA Sciences would be a great fit and both companies agreed to schedule a walkthrough with one of Blue Link’s Business Analysts. During the sales process, Melanie and a few of her colleagues worked with Blue Link to provide information about their current processes, desired functionality, budget and timeframe for implementation. Once all questions were answered, and a proposal signed implementation was planned.
Inter-Company Component
Since the company is divided into two companies, SAGA Sciences needed to figure out how to properly divide inventory amongst the businesses. By using the optional inter-company component in Blue Link that allows you to manage and transfer inventory between locations, SAGA Sciences can now make transfers with ease. This proved to be a much better process than dividing the inventory and moving it back and forth constantly. This component also allows you to combine financials of the two businesses to provide detailed reporting to the parent company. SAGA Sciences uses this component to aid optimizing their inventory management and no matter how many transfers they do, Blue Link shows accurate real-time data.
All-in-One Solution
The two biggest challenges that SAGA Sciences faced had to do with their inventory management and the combination of having all company operations in one system. Blue Link ERP is an all-in-one cloud-based ERP solution that is best suited for small to medium-size businesses, exactly like SAGA Sciences. Blue Link has been able to help SAGA Sciences manage their day-to-day operations with their inventory management, accounting and financials, reporting and analytics, order entry and processing and more.
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Since employees are now able to view all information on one screen, the company has reduced time spent on manual administrative tasks and increased their focus on more important tasks like customer assistance. SAGA Sciences has successfully reduced manual work and automated their processes. SAGA Sciences also struggled with the safety of their data. Blue Link is able to provide the peace of mind that their data is kept safe and if any issues arise, the Blue Link teams takes care of it.
Ultimately, SAGA Sciences has been able to optimize their inventory management processes by eliminating the need for multiple spreadsheets. In Blue Link once the data is entered, all corresponding information is automatically populated which gives the company insight into business operations and provides a better understanding to determine growth. SAGA Sciences went forward with the basic package for Blue Link and added components like the B2B ordering platform and the inter-company component which are now used daily.
Blue Link has been amazing right from the sales team, support, training…everything. We couldn’t have asked for a better partnership with an operating system.
Blue Link ERP provides integrated Accounting Software and Inventory Management Software to small and medium sized businesses, primarily wholesalers & distributors. READ MORE
