Bond Touch Taps Brightpearl to Save 800 Hours a Month

 Brightpearl gives us the scalability, flexibility and functionality we need to achieve our goals – Jorge Henriques, COO, Bond Touch

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that there are few things worse than being apart from the people we love. 

Whether it’s thousands of miles or just a few, distance causes us to crave connection – and it’s a craving that phone calls and Whatsapp messages can’t always satisfy, especially when different time zones are thrown into the mix. 

That’s where Bond Touch comes in. The multichannel DTC brand’s innovative bracelets are classed as ‘emotional wearable tech’, providing a new and ingenious way for separated loved ones to communicate and feel physically connected using taps, swipes and touches that translate into vibrations. 

Soon after launching in 2017, demand for Bond Touch’s flagship product immediately exceeded all expectations. Quickly, the business launched additional Shopify storefronts in order to reach consumers in Europe, Australia, Canada and the US, along with several extra warehouses. 

Out of touch operations

However, in a story familiar to many successful businesses in the Hyper-Scalable Era, the brand’s rapid growth introduced operational chaos – and running various channels with large order volumes, using only manual workflows and spreadsheets, soon became an impossible task.

The brand’s COO, Jorge Henriques, revealed: “When we only had one webstore and one website, it was fine. But when we expanded and added several extra web stores and warehouses, along with stockists and Amazon sales, the complexity hit the roof. 

“It became impossible to know how much stock we had at any one moment – we could only calculate it based on spreadsheet data and it was never accurate or in real time. We were struggling to manage demand and occasionally had stockouts. Our processes were far too manual. It was a nightmare.”

In search of a solution, Bond Touch, which is headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal with operations based out of California, considered signing up with Netsuite, as a traditional ERP provider, as well as single point solutions from Skubana and TradeGecko. 

However, only Brightpearl was able to offer the scalability, flexibility and functionality the brand required.

“We needed a solution that could integrate with our existing tech stack, cope with large order volumes and easily allow us to add new channels and tools,” Jorge added.

“We wanted to have the flexibility to decide what’s best for our business and quickly scale up or down depending on our needs. It was clear a big ERP system could never offer that kind of scalability. 

“We also needed a quick turnaround, but ERP systems take forever to set up and we would have needed lots of costly custom-built integrations to make it work for us.

“Having come across Brightpearl in previous roles, I knew it could do what we needed, so I booked a demo.”

Good vibrations

Unlike ‘all-in-one’, standalone solutions and some ERPs, Brightpearl takes a unique approach to implementation, with all projects fully scoped and managed by a team of retail experts, who also provide ongoing training, consulting and support.

It’s for this reason that Brightpearl implementation has a 97% success rate, with the average project taking less than 120 days – while ERP implementations fail in 50-75% of cases, take 420 days on average to complete and can cost up to 400% more than quoted. 

In the case of Bond Touch, implementation was extra speedy – it took just 40 days to get Brightpearl live and fully configured.

Immediately, the brand was able to benefit from Brightpearl’s features, including a powerful Automation Engine, market-leading demand forecasting software, a huge library of Plug & Play integrations, advanced reporting, OMS and WMS. 

“We got a great implementation service that was extremely quick,” said Jorge. 

“The training and support helped us hit the ground running and the Plug & Play integrations meant we connected our Shopify website, Xero accounting and other tech tools in half a dozen clicks. 

“Our aim was to stop our team doing almost all manual tasks, and we were able to achieve that with Brightpearl’s Automation Engine. Now, everything except occasional warranty orders are handled automatically.

“It’s a very intuitive, hands off solution – we now only need one, or possibly two, people to manage hundreds of thousands of orders. We can easily create custom automation rules to meet our needs – for instance, if one warehouse runs out of stock, a rule kicks in to automatically route orders to a second warehouse option.

“Automation with Brightpearl has saved us three full time hires – equating to around 120 hours a week, or 480 hours a month. 

“That’s not been the only benefit, though. Demand Planner has revolutionized our stock management. The risk of stockouts before was previously huge, but now it’s non-existent. We can accurately forecast demand, even factoring in promotions and peak periods.

“It’s hard to quantify the impact it has had on our business, but it’s been incredible. Thanks to Demand Planner, I’d say we’ve saved two full time members of staff, or 320 hours a month – at the very least.”

ERPs require costly configurations but with Brightpearl all the connectivity is already there – you can just turn the key and drive off. It’s awesome! — Jorge Henriques, COO, Bond Touch

Bond Touch has big plans for the future, with a clear focus on continued growth and a new product that promises to touch your heart.

Jorge added: “It’s our goal to continue to break the physical gap between loved ones using the power of technology. Brightpearl gives us the scalability, flexibility and functionality we need to achieve it.”