Background

World-class artistry and confectionery talent are the foundation for Da Vinci Gourmet' syrups. Add to that some great business insight, and you have the recipe for an internationally known, highly successful business.

Da Vinci Gourmet', Ltd. was founded in 1989 by two entrepreneurs in Seattle, Washington, Greg Davenport and Bill Cotter. Davenport is a well-known confectioner who has produced fine chocolates for customers world-wide since the early 1980s. The art of confectionery and creating flavorful masterpieces is a tradition in the Davenport family – Davenport's uncle made fine chocolates for Russian czars.

In 1989 as the specialty coffee industry was taking off, Greg teamed up with Bill Cotter, a Seattle attorney, to pursue business opportunities. After reviewing the flavored syrups that were available, they knew that there was a need for a great-tasting, gourmet syrup. Da Vinci Gourmet'", Ltd. was born - with a commitment to producing the highest quality products at a competitive price.

Eight years later, the team is still together, and sales and staff are expanding at record rates. The company has been recognized internationally as the source for the best-tasting, highest quality syrups in the industry. Davenport and Cotter's entrepreneurial venture has turned into one of the most profitable specialty gourmet companies in the market -- the company has over 100 distributors nationally and more than 30 overseas. There are currently over 70 flavors offered, from Almond to Watermelon. The syrups can be found at all major grocery stores. Da Vinci's customers also include institutional food services and specialty coffee and gourmet tea companies.

The Missing Ingredient

In 1995 as the demand for specialty coffees and syrups continued to climb, Da Vinci Gourmet realized that its growth was becoming both a blessing and a burden. The company had reached the status of a major supplier in the gourmet industry, but financial and customer information was being maintained and managed on a single personal computer bought years before for the bookkeeper. Sales and customer service representatives did not have a centralized, integrated way to track invoices, inventory, and customer information. While the company's growth was exciting, Davenport and Cotter realized that managing it was the key to continued success. They began the search for a sophisticated software solution for accounting and contact management.

Taste Tests

To help the company make an informed choice about the investment in productivity it was about to make, Da Vinci Gourmet hired a consultant to evaluate its needs and suggest software and hardware options. The consultant presented five choices to Rich Delmastro, controller of Da Vinci Gourmet.

After putting each software package through rigorous testing, we were sold on Navision Software," said Delmastro. "We needed not only a better way to handle our accounting, but also an effective management tool. Navision was the obvious choice."

Delmastro needed a way to move Da Vinci from low-level bookkeeping to management accounting -- integrating data and using it to manage growth, forecast change and assist in the decision making process. Instead of an off-the-shelf accounting software program, Da Vinci Gourmet needed a higher level system of integrated tools.

Oregon-based MicroAccounting Systems (MAS), one of Navision Software's Solution Centers, helped Da Vinci select granules (macro and micro functions) that fit the company's business processes and the hardware that would offer the benefits of current technology. The company purchased granules in eight functional areas: general ledger, purchase and payables, sales and receivables, inventory, payroll, report designer, bill of materials, and contact management.

The Winning Recipe

In his search for the perfect software, Delmastro was constantly faced with software programs that would require him to change his accounting process. But Da Vinci needed to "reassemble" software functions and handle transactions in a way that made sense for its business processes. Navision Financials' granular design accomplished this by breaking the system functionality down into small enough pieces to allow a "recomposition" to take place according to the needs of the business. This translates into scalability, adaptability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness -- exactly the combination Da Vinci needed. The result is a cohesive management accounting and sales force automation tool.

The contact management system has continued to be a big hit among the sales staff. The system has helped sales people design reports to accumulate and track leads for distributors and a "tickler" file for follow up calls. The system is currently managing over 15,000 contacts.

"Contact management allows us to gather relevant information about customers, vendors, employees and prospects in a single place," said Delmastro. "It gives us the tools we need to efficiently manage and carry out marketing, sales and communications campaigns using the same database that supports the accounting system. We've been well-serviced by the software."

Because of Da Vinci's multiple markets, distributors and sales leads, the company needed the ability to arrange financial data in several different ways. Navision Software's built in Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) capabilities allow the company to extract greater value from the software by providing more flexibility in the ways data can be manipulated and viewed. Navision allows users to define special automatically updated "FlowFields" that summarize information for specific accounting dimensions such as monetary or quantity balances for a combination of GL account and time period, for example. These fields are automatically drill-down enabled to allow navigation to the source transaction data and can display transaction balances based on user-defined filters. Delmastro is a fan of the software's OLAP capabilities because of the flexibility it provides them in providing highly customized information to its customers. "We will often have a customer call us and want a list of the top ten flavors they have bought over the past year," said Delmastro. "Before we had Navision Financials, collecting this information was a manual process. Now we can provide that information very easily to our customers."

Three years after purchasing Navision, Da Vinci is still impressed with its choice in accounting software. The service and training the company has received from MAS has been an integral part of Da Vinci's evolution into a sophisticated accounting and contact management system. "The high quality of service we get from MAS has continued to be a selling point for us long after the purchase was made," said Delmastro. "They took us from a one personal computer situation where almost everything was done manually to an automated environment where we have many tools at our disposal."

Navision Financials is sold through a worldwide network of Navision Solution Centers staffed with certified professionals dedicated to providing customized solutions, training, support and service. There are more than 800 Navision Solution Centers worldwide. Pricing for Navision Software's products is based on a scaleable, usage-based model that enables customers to purchase only the features and system capacity they actually use. The Navision Software solutions are built and sold to meet individual clients' needs through "granules" (macro and micro functions).