Based in the regional Victorian town of Lancefield, Feedworks Pty Ltd provides products, services and technologies to intense farming operations.

Feedworks has been a Jiwa (cloud version) user since January 2020. Up until then, the company had been relying on a combination of two Salesforce platform-based software programs for accounting, logistics and other basic business functions. Due to performance limitations in the areas of landed costs, manufacturing, and bill of materials, and because of other ongoing issues to do with integration between the two systems, Feedworks decided it was time for a change. To achieve its business goals during the next phase of the company’s evolution, Feedworks required an ERP system that could effectively manage all aspects of the company’s business operations. Ideally, the new system would strike a balance between performance and affordability.

“We knew that some of the more easily affordable systems like QuickBooks and MYOB would be inadequate for our growing needs, but we also knew that bigger, more feature‑rich system such as SAP would be exceedingly complex to use and prohibitively expensive”, said Keri Lawler, Director of Feedworks. “What we set about searching for was a system that occupied the middle ground.”

An in‑person demonstration of Jiwa by Feedworks’ Jiwa Solutions Partner (JSP) Reporting Solutions convinced Keri and her team that a Jiwa ERP solution was the ideal choice.

   

In the time since Jiwa was installed the system has benefited Feedworks in a number of ways. One of them is Jiwa’s ability to deliver far higher levels of accuracy and transparency when it comes to the costings of manufactured goods, as Keri explains.

“Purchasing from overseas suppliers is a big part of our business but we always had difficulties working out costings, in particular landed cost”, she said. “With Jiwa it’s a different story. All our costs associated with any given shipment are automatically entered into Jiwa and we can easily calculate precisely the landed costs for each shipment. These accuracy and transparency improvements have enabled to us to better know how our business is travelling because we now know with certainty whether we’re making sufficient margins on every shipment we bring in.”

One of the strengths of Jiwa is that it is comprehensive and powerful enough in its out‑the‑box functionality as to meet the requirements of the majority of customer organisations yet flexible enough to easily accommodate a wide range of plug‑ins and other customisations. In the case of Feedworks, Jiwa’s in‑built functionality is more than adequately meeting the company’s business requirements.

“When we were searching for an ERP solution it was my preference that we end up with technology that would be compatible with the way we already manage our business processes; we didn’t want a system that would require that we fundamentally change the way we do things”, said Keri. “Fortunately, with Jiwa what came out of box worked just fine across all our business units. While it’s good to know that Jiwa can be customised to address changing needs, so far we haven’t had to reach beyond what the system could do for us from day one.”

   

Growth is one of primary goals for virtually any business, including Feedworks. Since deploying Jiwa Feedworks has experienced steady growth and along with that has come new challenges and opportunities. In the two-plus years since Jiwa was deployed the system has played an important role in supporting Feedworks’ growth and the company expects this to continue well into the future.

“Feedworks can only continue to grow and thrive if we have tight control over all aspects of our business processes, including purchasing, importing, manufacturing, inventory and sales. Thanks to Jiwa we are far better placed to manage these processes and maximise our profitability.”

“For Feedworks Jiwa has already more than paid for itself. For any business that has outgrown its less sophisticated business management system Jiwa is an excellent, affordable alternative.”