Willie O'Byrne, managing director of BWG Foods and Allan Gray, managing director Atlas
BWG Foods has awarded a €300,000 contract to Atlas Universal to automate its entire purchase to pay process, handling in excess of 4.8m transactions annually. BWG operates the Spar, Eurospar, Mace and XL retail chains in Ireland.
BWG has been continually at the forefront of technological innovation in the Irish retail sector over the past two years, becoming the first retailer in Ireland to make its stores ready for contactless card payments, as well as embarking on a plan to deploy Wi-Fi hotspots at more than 200 retail outlets.
The cloud-based solution – BWG Tradelink – is enabling the company to carry out electronic data interchange, data synchronisation, supplier collaboration, invoice matching and new supply chain reporting.
“Given the diversification of our business across geographic locations and supply chain, the company was previously handling high volumes of paper-based invoices, so we were keen to devise a solution that would be more responsive, efficient and service-oriented for our supply chain partners and staff alike,” Willie O’Byrne, managing director of BWG Foods explained.
“Atlas was able to offer a retail technology solution which met our needs and was straightforward to implement. As well as streamlining the business’ purchase to pay process, and removing any inefficiency, we now have improved data intelligence at our fingertips, which can be shared across functions at the click of a button,” Byrne added.
BWG Foods and its suppliers are now using the electronic trading system designed by Atlas to achieve operational efficiencies and productivity improvements for both suppliers and stores.
It has also delivered improved efficiency in warehouse management systems, space planning systems and electronic point of sale systems which all now benefit from much more accurate, up to date and reliable data.
“Like many retailers in the current economic climate, BWG Foods is constantly looking for innovative ways to improve efficiency,” Atlas managing director Allan Gray.
“We created Atlas Universal to do just that and I would pay tribute to BWG for its vision in identifying just what could be achieved through the application of Universal under its own name – BWG Tradelink – and to the efforts of all concerned in delivering these excellent results.”
