Helping a Packaging Manufacturer Double Its Turnover

Growth has a way of outrunning the tools that got you there. Four04 — a privately owned, UK-based supplier and one of the country's leading food-packaging producers — built its reputation on customer service, innovation and responsibility. But behind the scenes, a fast-growing business was being run on a tangle of Excel spreadsheets and macros, and they had reached their limit.

"We were in desperate need of an update to our order processing system and more importantly a stock management system, which we did not have at all." — Four04

The Challenge

Spreadsheets are cheap, familiar and brilliant — right up until a business outgrows them. As Four04's data multiplied, the cracks showed: slower processes, rising risk of error, and information scattered across files. Supplies management, delivery times, production planning, logistics and customer service were all being held back by the way production data was stored and managed. The company had ambitious plans — bringing a new production plant into the business, winning more customers, shortening time-to-market — and no system capable of supporting them.

A Partnership, Not a Quick Fix

An off-the-shelf product would have meant bending the whole organisation to fit the software. A one-man-band developer had already proved out of its depth. What Four04 needed was a partner prepared to understand the business first — its bottlenecks, its decision-makers, its growth plans — and build around it.

"The team is very reactive, knowledgeable, intelligent, and polite. Their ability to read between the lines and proactively offer solutions sets them apart from other service providers." — Operations Director, Four04

Built for Where the Business Was Going

Rather than a big-bang launch, the work was delivered module by module over several years, solving the most pressing problems first and reinvesting the gains. Stock control, price matrices, product and customer management, order processing, production planning, invoicing and C-level financial reporting were brought together — with Power BI surfacing the data that leadership had never been able to see clearly before.

The Result

The numbers tell the story. In the first year after launch, profit rose by 30%; after three years, profit growth had doubled. Across the partnership, turnover grew from around £10m to over £20m.

"The system has enabled us to keep control of our rapidly expanding business. At the time we started the project, we were turning over around £10 million, now we are over £20 million and the system has, without a doubt, enabled us to manage this growth." — Operations Director, Four04

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