The Tangle Teezer Story
After a global hairdressing career spent at prestigious salons such Nicky Clarke, Toni & Guy and Vidal Sassoon, Tangle Teezer founder Shaun Pulfrey realised the need for a quick and easy hairbrush which detangled hair without tugging and pulling. His ‘light bulb’ moment came in 2003 and kick-started his research and development for the first professional detangling hair tool. The fun brand name came from chatting to a client in the salon chair. Shaun wanted something short and catchy… and changing the spelling to TEEZER rather than TEASER added some extra fizz (not frizz!) to his idea.
Despite being turned down by the ‘Dragon’s Den’ in 2007, viewers watching the programme loved the brush and the website was flooded with visitors after the show. All the hard work paid off when the original Tangle Teezer product was launched and stocked in High Street store Boots in 2008.
The rest, they say, is history. Since that time, Tangle Teezer has become a worldwide phenomenon. A-list celebrities like actress Emma Watson and model Cara Delevingne swear by Tangle Teezer and the product has received accolades from popular women’s magazines Bella, Cosmopolitan, Grazia and Harper’s Bazaar to name but a few. The revolutionary hairbrush has also earned Tangle Teezer two Queen’s Awards for innovation and international trade.
In late 2016 Tangle Teezer joined forces with TNP to implement a brand-new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system after outgrowing its old one. Since Dynamics NAV was implemented, the internal processes of the business have changed and adapted to the processes of its new system. There’s been a really positive effect with the business having more structure and new roads have been created because of the functionality in Dynamics NAV. Not only has Dynamics NAV halved the time spent on month-end consolidated accounts – it came in on time and under budget!
Watch our video to find out how Dynamics NAV has become the driving force of the digital side of Tangle Teezer.
Business Requirement
Since being established ten years ago, Tangle Teezer has grown at a hair-raising rate. It has operations in 85 countries and boasts sales of 20 units every single minute!
Traditionally, the company has relied on the Sage accountancy package, a financial system designed primarily for UK businesses. However, as Tangle Teezer has expanded internationally and created business entities in the USA and China, it has become increasingly difficult to carry out transactions and have full visibility of transactional activities in those faraway locations. To make matters even more complicated, Tangle Teezer relies on third-party systems to monitor items such as stock levels, the status of orders and dispatches.
Head of IT Dan Nicholson takes up the story, "rapid business growth combined with having multiple systems doing completely different tasks was a nightmare. We wanted to simplify everything and were looking for one integrated solution that would allow us to operate and deploy our business globally".
"Deploying TNP's solution has dramatically reduced the administrative time associated with completing month-end reports"
The Solution
When Tangle Teezer decided to replace its original ERP solution, the route to finding the perfect partner was a thorough one. It conducted what Dan calls a ‘speed-dating of ERP systems’ by attending trade events and setting up 15-20-minute meetings with various suppliers bringing the final selection down to two candidates.
Dan continued, "at this point, TNP were not on the list but a chance conversation with the owner of NetEDI, a partner we have a very close relationship with and trust implicitly and whose system is used by our customers to place their orders, changed all that. NetEDI recommended TNP and their opinion held huge weight although we wanted to do our own evaluation. As soon as we met TNP, it was clear they better suited our business requirements and their approach matched our culture far more closely than the original two candidates ever could. We were on the same level and it just felt right".
Tangle Teezer has recently gone live with the Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution from TNP to support the organisation’s US region, the first phase of the company’s global roll-out programme.
Detangling the knotty business of integration
Tangle Teezer has purchased Dynamics NAV finance, sales and warehouse modules and Dan’s team, with support from TNP, has successfully completed the majority of integration work themselves to support the business inside and out.
First of all, the new Dynamics NAV solution now links seamlessly with NetEDI making it easy for customers to place orders and crucially, enabling all parts of the Tangle Teezer organisation to manage the order process from beginning to end through the efficient exchange of sales orders, advance ship notices, invoices and other required documents quickly and accurately.
Secondly, Dynamics NAV is now integrated with Tangle Teezer’s e-commerce web platform powered by Magento. The integration of these two critical systems combines to strengthen the overall order process for staff and customers alike.
No more greys
Like many businesses operating internationally, Tangle Teezer has its fair share of grey areas to manage. Counterfeit goods are a real concern and the company has developed an ingenious solution to identify dubious manufacturers and sales outlets keen to capitalise on Tangle Teezer’s success as Dan explains:
"We are particularly proud of our serialisation solution, a special scanning technology that identifies a product’s QR code on the Tangle Teezer box to reveal whether or not it is the genuine article. A map of live scans around the world tells us instantly which distributor sold a Tangle Teezer, who put the original sales order onto the system, who packed it in the warehouse and when it was finally dispatched to the customer. The best bit is the system now integrates with Dynamics NAV giving us instant and clear visibility of our distributor supply chain. This means we can quickly identify and tackle grey market activities that, left undetected, would undoubtedly harm our reputation and even our overall business".
Business Benefits
TNP's solution is more user-friendly and provides greater visibility of data and regional activities. It has also increased efficiencies and enabled Tangle Teezer to introduce a smoother set of processes. Other tangible benefits include:
Slicker customer onboarding: using Dynamics NAV, Tangle Teezer has eradicated three systems and has far greater control over the customer onboarding process. It now takes only two systems and one month, versus the original eight months, to welcome new customers to Tangle Teezer, address their questions and concerns and ensure they are comfortable with our processes and services.
Out of the box reporting yields strategic results: before TNP, the Sage reporting process was very intense involving a significant amount of exporting work that had to be repeated every month. Today, the finance team can generate reports automatically using superior ‘out-of-the-box’ functionality.
"Deploying TNP's solution has dramatically reduced the administrative time associated with completing month-end reports. Our finance team has gone from simply churning data to channelling their energies and talents into tasks that benefit the company in a highly strategic way," added Dan Nicholson.
On time, under budget: In a very short space of time, Tangle Teezer, with support from TNP, has managed to integrate Dynamics NAV with three business critical systems - on time but under budget - very rare for IT projects.
Next on the horizon is expanding the system in a more dynamic way. Tangle Teezer plans to make TNP's solution an intrinsic part of Strategic Account Planning by using it to log sales leads and future opportunities and even aid decision-making on future product lines, sales forecasting and ultimately improve customer relationships.
Dan Nicholson concludes, "what impresses us most is TNP's approach to doing business. That their priority lies in making our solution and our business a success rather than theirs really comes across. It’s so obvious they are looking for a long-term relationship rather than short-term monetary gain. They are a caring, good bunch of people. Their team is brilliant and I really can’t fault them".
Learn more about how we can help your e-commerce with our ERP solutions.
In a Nutshell
Customer
Tangle Teezer
Industry
Retail
Business requirement
An ERP solution that would simplify IT and ordering processes and allow a fast-growing company to operate efficiently and globally
Solution
Microsoft Dynamics NAV integrated with the NetEDI retail system, Tangle Teezer’s eCommerce web platform and the company’s unique, in-house developed serialisation solution. Initially deployed in the USA as part of a global roll-out programme
