Monrovia Nursery Company has been a leading provider of house and garden plants for independent and big-box retailers since 1926. With over 1,500 employees and thousands of acres of cultivated land worldwide, Monrovia supplies plants and landscaping features to the world’s largest garden centers, independent shops, and major home improvement TV networks.
Monrovia’s operational data was previously hosted on a local server and distributed manually for reporting on an as-needed basis. But as the company grew and became more remote-friendly in the wake of the pandemic, data continued to expand and proliferate across multiple systems, causing the Monrovia IT team to seek out a more modern ERP solution with Oracle ERP Cloud.
“Our old ERP system was a single unit and we had access to every single piece of data, every application we needed on one machine,” said Todd Noe, Monrovia IT Manager. “Now, though, we had pockets of data spread out across different systems, APIs, and databases that we had to somehow bring into our new system.”
The Challenge: Foraging for Data
Noe’s data analysts were keen to get their data into an SQL Server cluster and expose it within existing Power BI, Google Analytics, and Excel reports to track shipments, finances, e-commerce trends, and more. But their previous methods of manually combing through and pulling data for each report was time-consuming and inefficient.
They needed a straightforward, automated way to pull all their data into their new system, transform it according to their needs, and build cohesive reports using near real-time data.
“The desperation of the analysts due to not being able to pool all of this data was becoming an issue,” said Noe. “On the heels of the migration, we began looking for a tool that would do all that forklifting for us and put it into one repository where we would have everything ready so we can build our reports. That’s where CData stepped in for us.”
“We began looking for a tool that would do all that forklifting for us and put [the data] into one repository where we would have everything ready so we can build our reports. That’s where CData stepped in for us.”
– Todd Noe, Monrovia Nursery Co. IT Manager
The Solution: Producing A Consolidated Data Strategy
Noe was familiar with the CData Platform, as he had previously leveraged the CData MariaDB Excel Add-In as a first step to keeping their multiple databases in sync. When they began migrating their ERP system, Noe realized that Monrovia needed a more holistic data integration strategy in place and began looking into CData Sync.
CData Sync is a data integration tool that allows users to easily create, maintain, and move a replica of their data from over 250 sources into the data storage solution of their choice. With simple point-and-click interface, flexible mapping and configuration, and secure backup and monitoring, CData Sync is the fastest and easiest way to consolidate and manage organizational data.
Almost immediately after downloading the free trial, Noe knew that he had found the right tool for his needs.
“There are other tools out there that will do pieces of the job, but CData did everything I wanted to do and more,” said Noe. “Fifteen minutes into the trial I had four different connections that were pulling data directly into SQL Server,” he said. “Then I could see all the other available connections and I started running through more and more scenarios where I could expand on our reports.
“The UI is what pulled me in,” he continued. “I see all the jobs running, the connections, and the transformation – all from this interface. I can fire triggers or do data transformation before or after a job runs, and I don’t have to configure that in whatever database platform I’m using – I can do it all right here.”
“There are other tools out there that will do pieces of the job, but CData did everything I wanted to do and more.”
– Todd Noe, Monrovia Nursery Co. IT Manager
The Result: Flourishing Reporting Processes
Noe and his team have utilized their newly consolidated data to develop cohesive financial and operational reporting processes, with plans for many more.
For instance, in order to track how different weather patterns affect sales and shipping processes, the Monrovia team pulls information from a weather tracking API, combines it with e-commerce and payment information in Google Analytics, and analyzes the relationships. The nursery supplier can now see how rainfall in Tuscan on a Thursday directly correlates with a 33% decrease in shipping volume that day.
Additionally, CData Sync helps Monrovia connect their new ERP with Freshdesk data to track pallet shipments and returns. Monrovia drivers can now track the retailers who have submitted tickets to pick up delivery pallets, map where they’re located on their delivery routes, and where any missing pallets might be.
Monrovia has also improved their complex e-commerce operations, syncing their e-commerce website with their ERP to populate the site with up-to-date, accurate inventory and location information. “Now the item inventory, garden centers, and warehouse locator information is all managed using CData.”
Noe’s team has also simplified financial reporting processes with CData Sync’s Stripe integration capabilities. Instead of downloading reports from multiple different systems and pulling the data into Excel to match and enrich manually, Noe’s analysts now produce more reliable and accessible reports in half the time.
“We can map Stripe payment data to our ecommerce orders and present payment reports in a single click to our finance team,” said Noe. “It used to take quite a while to compile that information, so our finance guys are happy with us now.”
The Monrovia IT team plans to expand their usage of CData Sync to build out even more robust integrations as their business grows.
“There are a few companies with tools we’ve come to rely on quite a bit,” said Noe. “CData is high up on my list as one of my favorites.”
“There are a few companies with tools we’ve come to rely on quite a bit. CData is high up on my list as one of my favorites.”
– Todd Noe, Monrovia Nursery Co. IT Manager
