LAUNCHED
2023
STATUS
Active
TYPE
Web Application,
Unleashed or Cin7 overly complicated? Why not create your own simpler inventory management system?
Founded in 2003, Village Green Seed is a New Zealand owned Turf Seed company that’s been steadily growing and supply seed to companies in New Zealand and Australia.
This growth lead the company to seek out a web-based inventory system to give them a better day-to-day handle on inventory levels and profitability.
Looking for a solution, they tried out the usual suspects in the ‘inventory management’ space — Cin7 and Unleashed. Both software systems were actually founded in NZ (since sold) and offer a SaaS-based off-the-shelf products.
After trialing both of these options (and a few others), it was clear each offered an impressive array of features, enough to handle the scale and demands of pretty much any business that needed an inventory management solution.
The problem was, it wasn’t designed for the individual use case that Village Green Seed needed.
While no fault, of course, with either Cin7 or Unleashed, there were day-to-day tasks and use cases that just weren’t supported.
Handling, what should have been a simple use case, required a frustrating number of extra steps which made little sense and meant the software was creating more work.
At this point, reached out to Orchid to see if we could help.
Of course, building an inventory management system from scratch is not a small project, and we initially raised our concerns on whether it’d be viable (we only start projects if we’re sure they’ll have a good return on investment.). After further conversations and careful consideration, it became clear that a custom application, highly tailored to Village Green Seed’s needs would definitely be worth their investment.
After some design and prototyping, we were able to work out a viable way to create a cloud-based inventory management system that was both simple and intuitive to use, and most importantly gave them a birds eye view on the core numbers of their business.
Rather than trying to fit a round peg in a square hole, they’re now using software that was specifically designed for their business, and is allowing them to expand and grow.
“I run an independent grass seed company and was looking for a bespoke inventory system that wouldn’t cost the earth.
I learned about Orchid, and after the first meeting was impressed with how they listened to me and even though I’m a smaller client than they would normally deal with, they agreed to help.
The initial product they came back with only needed a few small modifications and now I have a purpose-built system that gives me the flexibility I required, rather than trying to make something off the shelf work.
Orchid responds to questions quickly and are always happy to work on solutions or ways to expand the efficiency of my product. The other important thing, the price was excellent value for money.
I would recommend them to any business owner looking for a bespoke system.”
Tony Evans
Managing Director at Village Green Seed Ltd
