To maintain their leadership position within the market, Ribtex International is committed to providing high-quality products at affordable prices to their wholesale network (including Spotlight, Lincraft, Officeworks and The Reject Shop), as well as to school suppliers and via a direct-to-consumer store (Arbee Craft).  

The high  level of customer service they’re seeking could not be achieved without accurate insights and reporting into stock levels, which products are in demand at any given time, while also supporting their teams to do their best work.. Without an integrated view of their data across multiple systems, Ribtex teams were challenged with generating accurate reporting and insights, which are central in ensuring correct stock levels are maintained, and the right products are available for customers. 

Ribtex International is the perfect example of 'no two businesses are the same'. To overcome their challenges, they customised their ideal software solution by implementing several Access solutions in 2018. As an early adopter of Access Analytics, Express Leave, and Learning Management System, all delivered on the cloud-based single sign-on platform, Access Workspace, Ribtex International is now seeing success by way of huge time saving across their teams.  

"We save at least two or three days every month thanks to the simplified process and capability of the Access Analytics tool. We've also seen fewer questions come back to our customer service team, and it's given our sales reps better visibility of trends around products," Simon Newey, Ribtex General Manager.  

Access Workspace transforms the Ribtex workplace 

Adopting The Access Group solutions was the key to eliminating disparate spreadsheet systems and building a single unified platform. The previous way of working included extracting data into Excel every month and using pivot tables to make sense of the numbers, inhibiting the sales reps from accessing data on the go, and making insightful recommendations to wholesale partners and customers. 

"For sales reps out on the road, this was a particularly big challenge as it could take hours, across multiple days, to pull the data and get the insights they needed to inform discussions and stock recommendations with customers."  

Implementing Access Analytics provided Ribtex with much-needed flexibility and reporting accuracy. The dashboards are easy to set up and the data produced is in a format that is easy to consume by those who need it most.  

Not only are The Access Group solutions raising the bar on customer experience, but they are also providing much-needed help to get new employees up and going. Excel can be overwhelming and complicated, especially for new employees who are not across the historical application of spreadsheets. Productivity is further haltered without dedicated learning modules to support these new starters. Thanks to Access Workspace, that's one less worry Ribtex has to face.  

"The learning component through the Learning Management System has been great...The LMS has helped us in training for Analytics and having the course there on the same platform saves us so much time."  

Great implementation is key to success 

The product introduction and demos provided prior to implementation helped the business understand what the Analytics solution can do and whether it was the right fit. The expertise provided through the technical implementation phase meant a smooth deployment throughout the business. This meant Ribtex was reaping the benefits as soon as the systems were implemented. Working with the Access team, they identified nuances to increase the effectiveness of the solution, including altering the key reporting metrics to be unit sales (as opposed to dollar sales), as those insights inform stock requirements, which products are in demand, and minimises stock outages for customers.  

"The Access team were very good at helping us create some new data extracts to show us the number that matter to us."  

So what's next for Ribtex?  

As the Access team continuously invests and works on platform improvements, Mr Newey stated he sees a beneficial long-term relationship between the two organisations. The next step for Ribtex is to leverage the power of the full Access product suite to assist with ordering and forecasting stock requirements. The solutions provided by the Access Group are essential for Ribtex to ensure all their efforts translate into results.  

Read the full case study here.  

Alternatively, explore more about The Access Group financial management solutions,  or book a demo to see the products in action.