The transition of Van Wijngaarden + Co Taking time for the future now
'We are now in the middle of the implementation process. Implementing is very fun and rewarding work, especially for the future. It may be a lot of work now, but you have to look through that. After all, it's about the future. We are investing in it now and it will save a lot of time later on.

Starting early pays off. It is important to invest time in advance, because you cannot afford to pass over blindly. A big advantage of starting early is that you have a longer test period. Such a test phase is really necessary!

Real people, hard workers
A small company (ten employees) with all the advantages of a small company. Personal, reliable, friendly, short lines, quick decisions. Just some characteristics of the company. 'We feel very strongly about service. That goes for all our employees. Real people, hard workers. We have been working together for years. We have virtually no staff turnover.'

Real people, hard workers.

Testing yourself
'We want to know everything. With every feature opportunity, what can be done and what can't be done. Can we do something with it?' The two directors do the testing themselves. They take that for granted. 'Because when you do it yourself, you know it's good. The package has so many possibilities. We have translated these to our company and to our people.

If we pass March 1, we will have a good foundation and the assurance that it will be good. Testing is also constant thinking: how can I set it up now so that I can still enjoy it ten years from now.'

Enthusiasm
'From the moment of the first demo, our enthusiasm was pure. It felt good right away and we decided almost immediately: do it! Jan Verdoorn of Logres had listened very carefully to our wishes. We are very enthusiastic about Logres. After last summer we started the implementation.

Corné van Werkhoven, the consultant from Logres comes to us one day a week. The same evening we test everything. And from Corné we receive all his findings in the mail the next day. There is an enormous click with Corné, he is like one of us. He lives for the business, just as we live for our business. Otherwise we might have worked ourselves to death in December, which is already the busiest time of the year. Now we have quiet time to transition well prepared.'

Why the switch? 'For the past ten years we have been working with a standard package, albeit customized. The package still works under DOS. The main reason for switching is that our old database is filling up. And we don't get support anymore, nobody knows the program.'

Future
How do they see the future with the new Wholesale package? “First of all, there’s obviously the huge time savings. Everything will be entered correctly the first time. All prices will be accurate, and we’ll be able to import the data directly from our suppliers. Plus, we’ll once again have an unlimited database. And we’re aiming to reduce paper use—the paperwork will definitely be cut back.”

And we're striving for less paper, the paperwork is definitely getting less.

Transition
'Of course we could have switched on January 1. But we deliberately chose March 1.'