Thistle project first of its kind in the industry
June 1, 2007
Thistle Hotels – London’s biggest hotel operator and the UK’s third largest hotel group* - has saved in excess of £150,000 per year by rolling out a new order processing system for its food, beverage and housekeeping supplies.
The system supplied by Amphire, came in response to Thistle’s brief to take cost out of the purchasing process. Thistle wanted to find a more cost effective alternative to SAP Enterprise Buyer Professional, moving to a standard version of SAP in order to save on license fees.
‘The cost was becoming prohibitive. We needed to look for an alternative with better functionality,’ said Thistle’s purchasing director Quentin Neville.
The centrepiece of the new Thistle system is Makella’s Procure Lite software which has been tailored to integrate with Thistle’s SAP R3 system.
It enables 200 people across Thistle’s 49 hotels to order supplies from 30 approved suppliers. Thistle’s team can generate purchase orders for any supplier through a central website at any time of day. This flexibility is essential in the hospitality industry where vital food orders for the following day are often made by chefs after evening service.
Suppliers receive the orders in whichever format is appropriate for them, either through an integrated connection between Makella and their own stock management system, or via Makella’s web based Supplier Order system.
For suppliers, the system is supremely flexible and enables them to provide their catalogue information online to Thistle in many different formats including Excel, CSV, Access, Tab delimited and Text. Invoices are matched to delivery notes in an instant, speeding up payment for suppliers.
‘Our suppliers find it easier to use and we have more control. It is fifty times better in terms of reporting than anything we have had before,’ said Neville.
He also confirmed that the system had brought immediate business benefits to Thistle, saving £150,000 in license fees plus the additional savings gained from reduced staff time input and improved efficiency, which are yet to be quantified.
The system is currently handling up to 300 orders per day and is expected to handle around 100,000 in its first year.
‘In hospitality and the wider IT world, a true end-to-end system is the Holy Grail. This is what we’ve achieved for Thistle and we’ve done it in a way that has been almost painless,’ said Makella managing director Liam Taylor.
‘As far as we are aware this is the first time a complete end-to-end purchasing solution has connected a major hotel group to all its suppliers, ranging from small businesses with little or no electronic trading capability to fellow corporates with proprietary systems of their own.’
According to Taylor, quality training was vital to the system’s success. Makella provided one day sessions for key staff from each hotel - including order placers, finance controllers and general managers - prior to the system going live. Thistle’s suppliers were also trained on how to access orders and manage their catalogues online.
* based on number of bedrooms
Contact us
To find out what we can do for your business, contact your nearest office by clicking here.
