Lawson ANZ Signs Contract with Sheppard Industries

Lawson ANZ Signs Contract with Sheppard Industries

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, 25 February 2008– Lawson Software, a global provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software applications, today announced it signed a contract with leading Australasian cycling industry provider, the Sheppard Industries Group. The Sheppard Industries Group is a bicycle designer, contract manufacturer and owner and distributor of the popular Avanti brand, as well as distributor of the global Specialized brand to the AvantiPlus retail bicycle store network consisting of over 80 stores throughout Australasia. Under the deal, Sheppard Industries will deploy the Lawson M3 Enterprise Management System along with Lawson Business Intelligence suite and related maintenance and services. The contract was signed in Lawson’s second quarter of fiscal 2008, ending 30 November 2007.

Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Sheppard Industries also sells and distributes casters and wheels across New Zealand for use in furniture, as well as in industrial and medical equipment such as hospital trolleys. The company has additional offices in Christchurch, Melbourne and Perth.

“Ultimately, the key business driver behind our decision to implement the Lawson M3 solution was the need to have an integrated solution to improve supply chain management and procurement, and to achieve better results in stock turn,” said Paul Schnell, chief financial officer for the Sheppard Industries Group. “We also wanted a system that would allow us to reduce our levels of stock and reduce our numbers of out of stock. This, in turn, will allow us to deliver a better level of customer service at lower cost of working capital.”

The contract will see Sheppard Industries implement Lawson M3 modules including Finance, Supply Chain Planning, Enterprise Mobility, Demand Planner, and Sales and Marketing Automation.

Sheppard Industries selected Lawson over SAP and Oracle to address the need for a single, fully-integrated solution that will aid sales and operations planning through the company’s entire supply chain.

Up to now, the company has relied on a Quanta UNIX-based legacy system, which was highly modified and designed more for the needs of a retail organisation rather than a sophisticated distributor running a complex value chain.

“We’d been using the previous system for the past 20 years. However, it was no longer able to keep up with our business growth,” said Schnell.

With the Lawson M3 solution, Sheppard Industries anticipates improved efficiency in demand forecasting, which will help drive a more lean, just-in-time supply chain. This will help reduce the amount of working capital the company will have tied up in inventory, while helping to improve customer service.

“We’ve won this deal because we were able to understand Sheppard Industries’ business needs and issues and demonstrate how Lawson M3 could help address these issues,” said Stephen Moore, managing director for Lawson in ANZ. “This, combined with our proficiency in the solution design, put us ahead of the competition once again.”

Sheppard Industries is currently operating on a Sun Microsystems hardware platform. However, this will be replaced by a central IBM iSeries platform for the new Lawson M3 solution, which will be located at the company’s headquarters in Auckland.

About Sheppard Industries
Sheppard Industries designs, contract manufactures and sells bicycles through a retail network in New Zealand and Australia. Its main brands are Avanti and Specialized. Sheppard Industries is the dominant player in the New Zealand bicycle industry with a market share of around 50%. In addition to bikes, Sheppard Industries also sells and distributes castors and wheels. The company has two offices in New Zealand in Auckland and Christchurch, as well as two in Australia in Melbourne and Perth. For more information about Sheppard Industries’ range of bicycles, please visit: www.avantibikes.com.

About Lawson Software
Lawson Software provides software and service solutions to 4,000 customers in manufacturing, distribution, maintenance and service sector industries across 40 countries. Lawson’s solutions include Enterprise Performance Management, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management, Manufacturing Resource Planning, Enterprise Asset Management and industry-tailored applications. Lawson solutions assist customers in simplifying their businesses or organizations by helping them streamline processes, reduce costs and enhance business or operational performance. Lawson is headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., and has offices around the world. Visit Lawson online at www.lawson.com.

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