MARRY JANE CASE STUDY| BISTA SOLUTIONS INC.
Name of Company: Marry Jane CBD
Country: Switzerland
Industry: Cannabis
Implementation Partner: Bista Solutions, Inc.
Services Implemented: CRM, Inventory, Invoicing & Accounting, Point of Sale, Purchases, Email Marketing, Production Management
Overview
Familiar with business management software, Marry Jane wanted to centralize their islands of information and incorporate a single IT solution that could help them see all the data in order to make managerial-level decisions.
As a three-time Best Odoo Partners in USA and a 2021 Best Partner Nominee in North America, the Bista Solutions team used their experience and skill-set to right certain wrongs in order to help Marry Jane experience the full benefits of Odoo. In the end, all the goals were met as per the requirements.
About Marry Jane
This company was founded by a group of friends who had a shared appreciation of the smell and quality of the CBD flower. Their initial interest swiftly turned into a vision, and it wasn’t long before Marry Jane CBD came into existence. Based in Switzerland, Marry Jane is a Swiss vertically integrated CBD producer that is home to CBD flowers, vapes, tinctures, oils, extract, crystals, cosmetics, and much more.
Marry Jane has three B2C shops in different cities across Switzerland: Geneva, Zurich, and Basel. Their main office, on the other hand, is based in Breitenbach. That’s typically where the magic happens because not only is their head office the source of their B2B deals, but that’s also where they cultivate their product.
As such, their business includes cultivation, manufacturing, B2B sales, and B2C sales – both online and offline – through their own retail shops as well as via their website. In addition to domestic sales, Marry Jane exports their projects to 13 countries, including Japan. In four short years, Marry Jane managed to grow into the biggest European indoor cultivation company.
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Key Challenges & Requirements
Prior to connecting with Bista Solutions, Marry Jane used different IT solutions for accounting, POS sales, and warehouse management – all of which were accessible via different islands of information. While their old system worked when their company was just starting out, the company’s growth made what used to work nearly obsolete. Now, in order to make decisions, a larger amount of real-time data is needed. As such, Marry Jane went on the hunt for a single IT solution that could control all business processes and provide up-to-date data for decision-making purposes.
After about a month of searching and negotiations with over 20 seed-to-sale ERP vendors and integrators, Marry Jane came across the Bista Solutions team. Our team was selected due to our profound understanding of Marry Jane’s business as well as our client-oriented approach.
The company explained that it wanted to implement a system that could help with accounting and provide management with information for both analysis and decision-making. In a nutshell, they wanted data like revenue breakdown by product, company, sales manager, cities, regions, expenses, production volume, and even stock transfer.
Marry Jane’s main requirement was simple: to have a tier-1 software solution with a proven track record and with the ability to cover all their business processes – from production to sales, including something that was compatible with their Swiss Accounting system.
The Implementation
So, with requirements jotted down and the proposal drafted, both Marry Jane and Bista Solutions decided to get down to business. Though Sales Director Vivek Kir turned Marry Jane into a Bista Solutions customer, Sufyan Reshamwala (Sr. Business Analyst and Project Manager) was the main point of contact between Bista Solutions and the CFO of Marry Jane, Nik Martirosyan.
The implementation began in June of 2020 and ended in September of 2020. It took three months in the midst of a pandemic for Marry Jane to optimize their business processes with the help of the Bista Solutions team. Unfortunately, traveling on-site wasn’t possible due to global circumstances, and therefore, the entire process was virtual – from meetings and support to the actual implementation of services.
Once everything was completed, Bista Solutions ran a trial run, also known as a User Acceptance Test (UAT). This usually happens before the project goes live in order to catch any potential errors or to fix any last-minute issues. The UAT concluded that the accounting team would have benefited from further training. While this delayed the implementation from going live, the UAT also provided valuable insight and allowed for company optimization. Another issue that arose was that the Point of Sale system didn’t quite reach the expectations of the Marry Jane team. They wanted more customization and for the multi-store POS system to work across all three of their physical shops in Geneva, Zurich, and Basel in Switzerland.
In order to rectify both issues, Bista Solutions became even more accessible. Even though they were always available for the team members of Marry Jane, this time it meant accepting text messages from Marry Jane employees who struggled with understanding the functions of the POS system, attending to back-to-back calls, and providing the necessary service 24/7. When it came to tending to the accounting team, as mentioned above, Bista Solutions resorted to training. This wasn’t particularly easy. The biggest issue was the language barrier between the Marry Jane team, who mostly spoke Swiss or German, while some of the Bista team spoke English with an American accent and some others with an Indian accent. Needless to say, it was challenging. However, in spite of the challenges, the team did gain the knowledge needed to perform tasks.
Even though the implementation has long ended, Bista Solutions’ relationship with Marry Jane hasn’t. Bista has provided the company with over one year of support related to the implementation, and this support is still ongoing.
Working with the Bista Team
According to Mr. Martirosyan, the best thing that came from working with Bista and implementing the Odoo ERP system was how they were informed about the mistakes they were making with their operations. Marry Jane had moved into a new facility and was operating with their old organizational structure. Bista Solutions was able to identify their pain points and help them in that area. This soon turned into a bottom-up approach. Marry Jane was able to identify the mistakes they were making when working with information they saw (via Odoo and the Bista team). Then, by analyzing those mistakes, the Marry Jane team was able to fix them, which helped fix the organizational structure.
The Outcome
The implementation of the Odoo ERP helped Marry Jane get very useful and detailed information regarding their operations, as well as the ability to better measure the efficiency of their company. Based on the information they received, Marry Jane has decided to develop a KPI-system – and also take this information into account when coming up with new strategies for the company.
Upon the implementation, at least 10 hours per month for accounting and 10 hours per month for CFO duties are saved on sales analytical report preparation processes. Additionally, some implementation results like Sales and POS modules have exceeded the expectations of the team at Marry Jane. While other business processes are still under development with Bista Solutions, the biggest and most important goal Marry Jane had was achieved. The company was able to digitize each process and provide all managers with daily, weekly, and monthly reports for analysis and decision-making purposes. Furthermore, they were also able to automate the preparation of reports for the government and tax authorities.
If you would like to see more of how Mr. Martirosyan feels about his experience with Bista Solutions, check out his testimonial video here.