How Unleashed Supported Valentte’s 100% A Year Growth 

Over the last 10+ years, Valentte has grown rapidly. Before adopting Unleashed and Mintsoft, the team was losing control of stock holdings, manufacturing processes, production, and still running the business through Excel spreadsheets, leading to overstocking and stockout issues with ingredients and products.  

“We were running out of ingredients, having too much of other ingredients and we just lost control and that was combined with very, very rapid growth. We were growing at 100% a year and it was challenging. Very similar story inside our picking and packing operations. We needed more control.” – Luke Bream, CEO 

They identified that this wasn’t sustainable anymore and needed an inventory and warehouse management system to gain control over their production and stock. To do this, Valentte turned to Unleashed and Mintsoft. 

Onboarding and Support 

Valentte adopted Unleashed and Mintsoft simultaneously because they operate manufacturing and e-commerce in-house. The team were guided through the onboarding process by their dedicated Unleashed expert.  

Luke has been pleased with the support they’ve received since integrating Unleashed, saying, “the support on Unleashed has been phenomenal. When we've had a problem with it, having that telephone support was really, really good.” 

Scalability 

As the Valentte team has grown, so has their use of Unleashed. Over the years, Valentte have gradually scaled up their use of Unleashed, adding more layers of complexity.  

They initially began by utilising the assembly features and Bill of Materials (BOMs). They have progressed to employing barcode scanning, purchase orders, and stock count features to gain greater control over their production. 

As they have expanded the team, both Mintsoft and Unleashed have continued to support them. Luke said: “Both software products work really well for us as a small 5-person business and equally work well for us with having 200 people inside the business and beyond.”  

He added, “The software has allowed us to operate at both those two different scales and was priced at a level that allowed us to scale in that way.”  

Advanced Inventory Manager (AIM) 

Valentte has benefitted from Unleashed’s Advanced Inventory Manager (AIM). Through demand forecasting, they can determine their optimal stock levels based on historical data.  

Luke said, “We'll create rules internally that allow us to group certain products together and then we can model how much we need to make in the future.”  

He continued: “The bigger the business has got, the more we need to rely on a feature like AIM to figure out how much product to make.” 

BI Vision  

Before using BI Vision, the Valentte team had no way of valuing their stock, causing financial losses due to the inability to utilise it because of its age. Since adopting Unleashed, their operations team can plan which ingredients to use in their products based on their age, reducing waste and costs.  

“BI Vision is another great feature for us that we use a lot,  looking at the valuation of stock and the age of that stock. With the best will in the world, you can buy components and then maybe not use it or stock gets older. And so, we are constantly looking at the age of stock which comes up in there and then we can dig down into what particular products make up that.” - Luke Bream, CEO 

“Taking both products, Unleashed and Mintsoft together, we couldn’t run the business without them. It’s as simple as that. We’re growing at 100% a year and that growth has been entirely underpinned by the performance and our interaction with Unleashed and Mintsoft. They’re critical to our business.”  - Luke Bream, CEO 

It [Mintsoft & Unleashed] has produced fifty times increase for us in sales terms during that time and we couldn't have done it without those two pieces of software. They are completely integral to the way that we run and operate the business”- Luke Bream, CEO 

Financial Results

Before adopting Unleashed, the team were unable to see the cost of manufacturing each product, due to running the business via spreadsheets. Since moving to using Unleashed, the team can see and break down each cost, ensuring they’re not losing money. Luke commented, “It's led to really strong control within the business as to the numbers.”

He continued, “We look for the divergence in cost price of the product. We are expecting the unit cost of a certain product to be X, it might be a pound and if it falls more than £0.03 outside of that number, above or below, the team goes and investigates before we complete assembly.”

“It still takes us the same time to make our products. What [Unleashed] does assist us with, is knowing how efficient we are in making them with the stock control, [we can see] how much goes into the bill of materials, against how much is used in assemblies. That is very key because that helps us with our efficiencies at the other end - the financial end, which is the most important.” – Andy Goss, Head of Finance.