Case History

During the software selection were analyzed several applications; Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi, company bearing worldwide the ”Made in Italy” value, finally strengthened its technological partnership with Replica Sistemi and chose NAV Wine vertical solution to continue its growth process.

Company

From the regions of Chianti and Pomino Doc, from Montalcino to Maremma and from Mugello to the province of Livorno. This is Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi estate, Florentine family committed to production of excellent Tuscan wines since 700 years and 30 generations.

The Frescobaldi family manages its winery combining tradition, expertise and innovation. Commitment to agriculture and respect to the environment are the founding principles of the company, that has always given great importance to investments in communication and innovation.

Microsoft and Marchesi de' Frescobaldi raise a glass to driving growth

5.000 hectares, over 1.000 vineyards, seven estates and two wineries in Tuscany, together with the perfect environment and raw material cognition, make Frescobaldi able to guarantee the unaltered quality and strong personality of its wines in over 65 countries around the world.

Family members have always been managing the company. The younger generation, driven by the passion for such an activity requiring high professionalism and expertise, preserve the heritage of their predecessors focusing the company business solely on wine production.

“Over the last years the company has grown so fast”, President Leonardo Frescobaldi said. “We decided to use the best technology available on the market because the I.T. is the key to determine many strategic processes to produce high-quality wine”.

Numbers and structures

2011 Revenues: 82 million Euro
7 proprietary estates in Tuscany + 2 proprietary wineries in Tuscany
1 proprietary estate in Friuli Venezia Giulia
5.000 proprietary hectares
over 1.000 proprietary vineyards
65 countries wine distribution

Requirements

Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi is replacing the earlier ERP with Microsoft Dynamics NAV and NAV Wine vertical solution, designed by Replica Sistemi.

The ERP implementation cycle, whose release is scheduled for 2013, is coordinated by REPLICA SISTEMI consultants in collaboration with EOS Solutions, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

schermata-ordini-navwine “We chose Microsoft and Replica Sistemi as they are international companies, able to assure the required support considering also the international evolution the company is going through”, says Frescobaldi. “The amount of data to be processed and the unceasing customization requests over years and years, made the previous solution hard to manage with outrageous maintenance costs”.

Frescobaldi is a group of companies which includes 7 vineyard estates in Tuscany and 1 in Friuli Venezia Giulia. They keep separate the corporate structure to preserve the respective region quality and peculiarity of the grape.

The Information Technology is centralized and directed by a group of 5 programmers working for over 200 people. Mr. Claudio Corgnati, Ict Director of Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi, adds:”Ict provides services to Frescobaldi in many areas: manufacturing and administration processes, management of customers, warehouse and logistics. We started thinking about renewing our legacy systems when complexity and maintenance cost turned out to be unreasonable”.

Targets of the Project

Reduce pressure on ICT structure
Reduce reaction time
Introduce a multi-company software for a wide group-overview and supervision and an easy intercompany management
Turn an over-customized application into a single and complete solution
Processing in real-time
Cut any customizations
Cut maintenance and development cost
Easy integration with common tools (such as excel)
Support responding to the company requirements to the international growth

Solutions

schermata-ordini-navwine The adoption of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, as a common ERP across all group affiliates, came after an
in-depth software selection among several companies.
“Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a highly flexible and modular solution. Microsoft ERP will make our infrastructure lighter and more manageable” says Mr. Corgnati. “The possibility for Replica Sistemi to develop a specific vertical application for wine-industry based on its long-time expertise, confirmed and convinced us we made the right choice”.

Project

2011: Software Selection, adoption of Microsoft Dynamics Nav with NAV-Wine vertical solution
2011-2012: Analysis - Design of NAV-Wine - Testing
January, 1, 2013: GO-Live.

Advantages

“We are one of the first companies in wine-industry that invested in technology to drive better business processes” says Leonardo Frescobaldi. “The three main areas involved in the ERP implementation are manufacturing, sales and administration”.

schermata-ordini-navwine Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi appreciated the flexibility of the application and the effort and skills of the three technology partners involved, Microsoft, Replica Sistemi and EOS Solutions. “It’s just like we had to change “the company clothes” and Microsoft was the tailor able to shape the perfectly fitting cloth, of the highest quality”.

“The amount of exports is about 70% of our business”, says Frescobaldi. “A key target to pursue for the years to come is to increase wine exports to United States and Asia. We are sure Microsoft will make it easy and effective”.

Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi has always been supporting technology. The Ict Manager says: “We started designing web portals for the sales force and transportation in the early 90’s. The I.T. makes business processes much easier: bottling, warehousing, order processing - dispatch, manufacturing planning, national and international delivery”.

“We expect that Microsoft Dynamics NAV will make our I.T. department less demanding, helping to free resources for other strategic projects. A further important advantage is the data availability in very short time to make business decisions much faster”, finally says Leonardo Frescobaldi.