Plant-based Green Monday Grows With DEAR Inventory in China

Efficient business operations with Cloud Inventory Management software from DEAR systems

Introduction

Do small businesses even need an ERP system? Green Monday (GM) implements DEAR Inventory to aid the growth in China and shares the details about the process: from the initial agreement to implementation and using DEAR inventory and the positive changes the company saw.

Testimonies of Green Monday employees

“We were looking for a system that would allow us to instantly check the key information about inventory levels, project status, sales, and financial reporting. That is now easily accessible on an online dashboard via DEAR Inventory! The repetitive tasks of data entering and management have been automated and employees are free to attend to more essential duties.”

“When learning to work with DEAR Inventory, staff had plenty of basic questions and INNO was always there to answer any of them! We only had one point of contact and it made communication much smoother.”

“I used multiple ERP systems in my former companies. The design of DEAR Systems logistic management is the best in terms of reasonable operation logic. Order entries and inventory data are set up intuitively, so it always seems that I immediately find the information that I am looking for.”

About Green Monday

Business Type in China: Wholesaler & Distributor
Industry: Plant-based products manufacturing, importing, and advocacy
Location: Shanghai
Headquarters: Hong Kong
Number of users: 12
Software: DEAR cloud-based inventory ERP
Implemented by: INNO
Project duration: 13 days
INNO customer: since December 2019

Founded by David Yeung in Hong Kong on Earth Day in 2012, Green Monday (GM) is a social venture group advocating plant-based food and a sustainable lifestyle.

GM imports plant-based food products thus increasing the supply of sustainable choices for Chinese consumers as well as corporate consulting, impact investing, and social awareness campaigns educating the public about the importance of green lifestyle.

The hybrid business model consists of three entities:

Green Common – a one-stop plant-based concept store introducing the trend-setting food items in Asia
Green Monday Venture – impact investment and strategic alliance
Right Treat – food-tech company with the mission to innovate food that treats humans, the planet, and animals with compassion. Their first product, OmniPork was described as a “game-changer for Asia and the world”.

GM and the founder/CEO David Yeung accumulated numbers of awards including Social Entrepreneur of The Year 2018, Roddenberry Prize (2018), Ashoka Fellow, Sustainability Champion, 2019 Company of the Year

Key challenges

The lack of a centralized system that is accessible to employees of various departments made business operations and communication time-consuming
Difficulty entering, monitoring, and managing data including shelf-life collected from multiple sources made stock management and forecasting inaccurate
Struggle to manage accounts receivable comes from GM being a small operation and needing to offer special conditions for buyers in attempts to step ahead of the competitors which risks disturbing the cash flow.
Inability to join GM overseas branches because of the language barrier, the lack of localhost, and mobile compatibility.

Solutions

End-to-end sales management: manage sales quota, prepayment, sales order, order fulfillment, sales invoice, balance payment, and bank reconciliation that are fit-for-purpose.
Integral inventory management: added features that help GM to stay on top of stock availability and stock replenishment, plus easy-to-use product movement summary. DEAR Inventory is equipped with batch and expiry date tracking for automated food safety compliance and better quality control.
Accurate, real-time sales reporting to understand margins and adjust sales strategy
DEAR Inventory features a bilingual user interface and is hosted in China. It can be used on PC as well as any mobile devices.

As a small business, GM needed a straightforward solution suitable for B2B and allowing the possibility of B2C channels in the future. DEAR Inventory is perfect for the company’s use now and has room for development in the future.

INNO provides a full set of documentation including project plan, blueprint, consultancy confirmation, service sheet, and monthly on-going monitoring report. The whole project only took GM 13 days from the initial meeting to going live with INNO and DEAR Inventory!

Key improvements in GM operations

Effective communication ensures speedy and professional response to customers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers by using standard format documents via DEAR Inventory.
No need for a full-time admin to trace the data or maintain excel sheets, so the employee is free to do more analysis using the DEAR Inventory-generated report module that supports management in making strategic decisions.
Automatic monitoring of batched products and tracking of their current location and destination provides a quick overview of all shipping and order statuses. Multiple alerts ensure persons responsible will not miss the deadline for taking action.
An INNO-crafted blueprint tailored for GM helps ensure the visibility of writebacks, tracing of products, sales, stock availability, and helps avoid manual errors.

Possible future improvements include

margin monitoring
easier business planning
improved record-keeping
better control of supply chain and inventory forecast
Correct allocation of surcharges for certain products due to the nature of varying costs of import for GM.

How can small businesses benefit from DEAR Inventory?

DEAR Inventory Software can improve efficiency thus cutting operating costs and driving the sales up. GM has made its first steps towards being an analytically led and market-driven company in Mainland China.

DEAR Systems is cloud-based services that can easily be adjusted to accommodate more users or modules. Businesses can customize the services to fit their business needs and budgets so that a startup business would not be stuck with expensive software. Enhanced workforce productivity due to automation and flexible data access can lead to cost-saving in the long term.

The Key Advantages of Using DEAR Inventory

DEAR is successfully operated by 100+ users in China with INNO as the unique partner. INNO supported DEAR Systems in deploying the software on the local Azure server for existing users and new joiners… (learn more).

	Status
English and Chinese service	√
Operated over the cloud (no IT hardware and personnel needed)	√
Hosted in China on Microsoft server – Azure	√
Australian design enabled super usability	√
Ability to view and operate on mobile devices	√
Reduced life-cycle cost	√

About INNO – the only Official Partner of DEAR Systems in China

INNO cares about data accuracy since it is a core value for small businesses navigating the change of the market. Having developed a unique approach to on-going monitoring, we take the clients through the beginning stage smoothly and they quickly learn how to operate the new software. At INNO, we believe it is essential to build up trust and empower staff and management to make well-informed decisions about the business with the help of DEAR.

Right Software | Right Service | Right People

INNO works with product-based small and medium-sized businesses in China that prioritize streamlining operations with the help of powerful software. Our experts implement cloud ERP systems for manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and eCommerce sectors. We focus on delivering the right software and support that will make your business more efficient and effortless to operate. Services are delivered in English and Chinese.

Main services:

Contact INNO to book a FREE live demo and discover what DEAR inventory software can do for your business.

INNO founder Jano Tse has 12 years of experience in implementing ERP systems for foreign and local companies. He also specializes in accounting process under China’s business environment. Jano’s passion for disciplined delivery and methods for meeting goals on time and under budget is exactly what INNO brings to each of the clients. Get in touch with Jano at jano_tse@inno-is.com

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