Blog by Mark Allen – Head of Technical Partnerships at We Know Data.
I was lucky enough to be invited to Infinity Foods Wholesale in Brighton, to look at how Claris FileMaker has formed the backbone of their health food business and taken it from a small wholefood shop selling vegetarian food from the front room of a house, to being one of the UK’s leading wholesale distributors of organic foods. As a Claris Platinum Partner, We Know Data are always interested to learn of the many imaginative uses of FileMaker within different industries, so when we found out that Infinity Foods have been using FileMaker for over 30 years, we were keen to find out more.
Expanding infinity foods with Claris FileMaker
FileMaker has been instrumental in facilitating the expansion of Infinity Foods and the system, which started as a bespoke, in-house stock management system, and now forms the backbone of the warehouse management side of the business. This encompasses customer services and order processing, to sales forecasts, purchasing, HR and even operating the warehouse order picking process via an innovative use of iPads, glove-mounted scanners and bluetooth headsets. There is no area of the warehouse that isn’t supported and enhanced by their creative use of the Claris platform: FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go, FileMaker Server and WebDirect.
Meeting with a true citizen developer
I met with Dom Ferrari, who gave me a tour of the warehouse and proudly told me how, working closely with fellow in-house developer Peter Cowell, the self-described “citizen developers” have managed to enhance so many of their processes with the Claris Platform, as it’s both powerful and flexible enough to look after their very bespoke business needs.
I was introduced to Dom via another Claris Partner – Jul Carson from Code J, who explained how he’s helped support Infinity Foods for many years, training in-house developers, offering consultancy and providing additional resource to help them solve some of the more complex issues they’ve faced. Along with other Claris Partners, who have helped with integration to their accounts package and provided guidance on how to make the most of their server setup, Infinity foods are able to stay up-to-date and well informed on the latest developments in the Claris platform.
This is an inspirational example of how FileMaker can form the backbone of a business for many years, using a blend of in-house skills, supplemented by additional expertise from Claris Partners.
We Know Data is a Claris Business Alliance Platinum Partner
We Know Data is a Claris Business Alliance Platinum Partner with a team of Certified FileMaker Developers. If you need help with an existing FileMaker System or you are looking at a new digital solution for your organisation get in touch. We offer a Free 1 Hour Consultation.
