Today, Navitas supplies electrical wholesalers across the UK, and is on course to achieve annual revenues of around £2.5 million.
Rapid growth brings opportunity, but it also creates operational challenges. From the very beginning, Founder and Managing Director William Winter knew the business needed strong systems behind it if it was going to scale successfully.
Starting a manufacturing business from scratch meant every decision mattered. With only two people in the business, there was no room for inefficient processes or duplicated administration.
"We made a conscious decision that we wanted to build the business on proper systems from day one," says William. "It's much easier to implement good processes with two people than it is with twenty."
While Bill focused on selecting an accounting package, William began searching for an MRP system capable of handling purchasing, inventory, bills of materials, and production planning without requiring a significant upfront investment.
"I'd previously worked with enterprise-level software that cost tens of thousands of pounds to implement. That simply wasn't realistic for a startup."
The search eventually landed with William's long-time friend, Junii Whyte, who is now also a Director at Navitas.
"Junii enjoys researching software far more than I do," William laughs. "I gave him our requirements and asked him to investigate the options. After testing several systems, he came back and recommended MRPeasy."
Up and running in weeks
Once Navitas became a full-time business, implementation began immediately.
Within weeks, the team had imported customer records, suppliers, stock items, and bills of materials, allowing operations to begin on a structured platform rather than relying on spreadsheets.
"The import tools made the process surprisingly straightforward," says William. "There was a lot of information to load into the system, but once it was there, we were able to start operating almost immediately."
Supporting rapid growth
Growing from zero to more than £2 million in revenue happened quickly.
According to William, that pace of growth exposed challenges that simply don't exist in smaller businesses.
"When you're growing that quickly, new problems appear every few months. You suddenly have more products, more customers, more suppliers, and significantly more information to manage."
Rather than creating those processes later, Navitas already had the infrastructure in place.
"We've been able to scale without dramatically increasing administration because the foundations were already there."
Turning information into better decisions
One area where William believes MRPeasy delivers particular value is access to data.
With thousands of products, components, and customer records in the system, quickly finding the right information has become increasingly important.
"The search functionality is excellent. Whether you're searching for a customer, a purchase order, a product code, or almost anything else, it's incredibly quick. When several part numbers differ by only a single character, that saves a huge amount of time."
Mobility that suits a growing business
Because MRPeasy is cloud-based, the Navitas team can work wherever they happen to be. Sales representatives update customer information while visiting wholesalers, management can monitor operations remotely, and staff always have access to current information.
"I can manage the business from almost anywhere," says William. "Our sales team can update customer information while they're sitting with customers instead of waiting until they're back in the office."
Reducing administration
Another feature William highlights is the customer portal.
Many Navitas customers place repeat orders throughout the year.
Rather than emailing purchase orders or manually processing repeat transactions, customers can log in, access their agreed pricing, view invoices, check delivery information, and place orders themselves.
"It reduces administration for both us and our customers while also minimizing the risk of manual input errors."
Looking back
Reflecting on the company's growth, William believes selecting an MRP system early was one of the most important operational decisions Navitas made.
"The business has grown because of the people, the products, and the relationships we've built, but having the right systems behind us has made that growth far easier to manage. For a business starting out, MRPeasy gave us a professional operational platform without the cost or complexity of larger enterprise systems. Looking back, implementing it early was one of the best decisions we made."
For more information, please visit www.MRPeasy.com.
