Testimonial : Ilhan Foods

Ilhan Foods, a Turkish food wholesaler, has been working with Mercator for over 12 years.

Testimonials
Meeting with Nejlâ K., an accountant at Ilhan Foods and a Mercator user for many years.

Can you tell us about the company and its activity in a few words?

Nejlâ K.: Ilhan Foods is a food and beverages wholesaler. We import products of Turkish origin that we resell to grocery stores or to other wholesalers also specialising in Turkish products. We cover the whole of Belgium.
We also market the products of the cheese maker Nefis.

wholesaler Ilhan Foods

In terms of IT, what type of solution did you have, before Mercator, to manage the business?

NK: To begin with, we were working with another program. Then we needed more competent software in terms of business management. The software that we had was more geared towards accounting but we needed effective and more comprehensive business management. We therefore switched to Mercator in 2004, which is now 12 years ago.
The accounting has since also been done with Mercator.

Has the solution provided by Mercator met your expectations?

NK: Yes, we are happy with it. Many things can be automated. We save time because data can be injected from one part of the program to another. There is therefore no need to re-enter data several times. This is practical for invoicing, for example.
Before Mercator, orders were taken by hand. When the sales representative returned to the office, a person was tasked with re-entering the orders on the PC. Work was therefore duplicated and we were wasting time.

tukas Turkish wholesaler

What are, in your opinion, the key elements of your business that the business management software needs to manage?

NK: The most important one is stock management. The software enables us to know what is in stock without having to go to the depot.
We recently had touchscreens and mini-scanners installed. They are used by our sales representatives.


The use of touchscreens and mini-scanners

Each representative creates orders on his or her tablet or mobile phone when he or she visits customers (wholesalers, grocery stores, etc.). He or she records them in his or her Mercator system and they are sent to the central file: the plant receives the orders, prepares them and then invoices them.
The sales representative has all of the products that are in stock in his or her Mercator system. He or she can easily show them to a customer on his or her tablet thanks to the Mercator touchscreen system.

With regular customers who want to re-order certain products, the sales representative goes along the shelves of the grocery with his or her mini-scanner and scans the barcode of each type of item to be resupplied. He or she immediately obtains the product information sheet in his or her Mercator system without having to manually search for the reference. Ordering is therefore faster.
He or she then selects the quantities by touch on their tablet and sends the order to the plant.

NK: The mini-scanners will simplify stock management. There will be fewer errors since, by scanning the barcodes, we will be able to have the correct reference for the item.
In our sector, we sell an enormous number of products, such as biscuits, that are of a single variety but the flavour or packaging of which is different for each item. It is therefore important to have this specific information during ordering.

barcode business management software

What are the next steps in your use of Mercator?

NK: In the immediate future, we will complete the installation of the mini-scanners and learn how to work with them. The software permits a large number of functionalities and it is worthwhile using everything that is provided.
We had the new version of Mercator installed some time ago: Mercator Majuro. It is quite a long process but it is about to be completed. We have used this time to put some new things in place such as the mini-scanners.

software import food

Are you generally satisfied with the contact with the Mercator team?

NK: Yes, the working method is quite efficient and fast.
We have one person at Mercator who is responsible for our project. There are advantages to primarily having a single contact person: he has a thorough knowledge of our project, our needs and how Mercator can be useful for our business. When the project manager is not available, the rest of the team takes over and is able to answer our questions.