Partnering with Cin7 Helps Think Better Group Reduce the World’s Reliance on Virgin Plastic

The e-commerce company that builds sustainable businesses and creates circular solutions streamlined its inventory processes and customized its reporting with Cin7, making its e-commerce activities efficient and transparent. 

Since 2019, the Think Better Group (TBG) has prevented 760 tons of plastic from entering our ecosystems and 38,003,473 single-use plastics from entering the ocean each year! It’s a remarkable feat, so how did this successful eco-friendly business get started?

According to James Nicholson, Head of Management Change, Think Better Group was created by melding two like-minded businesses, Brewed By Hand and Ecoriginals. 

Ecoriginals uses approximately 60-to-70% less plastic in their diapers (or “nappies” as they’re known in the UK and Australia) than the typical mainstream brands, and Brewed By Hand supplies specialty coffee equipment as well as biodegradable pods. Together, the environmentally conscious companies started TBG on its journey of acquiring similar e-commerce brands with the mission to improve sustainability, grow sales, and increase consumer engagement.

Ridding Single-Use Plastic Waste with a Single, Comprehensive Solution

As TBG grew, it added three brands to its impressive portfolio, but it wasn’t (and isn’t) done yet. With external funding from ABN AMRO Sustainability Fund, it added more brands—all located in Australia, the UK, and the US. 

Finding businesses to join TBG’s mission of reducing or even eliminating plastic consumption across the globe was the easy part. Getting them on the same inventory and financial page at the same time? Not so much.

“Some of the businesses we bought were operating on very manual systems like Excel. Some were using basic inventory systems available in sales or e-commerce packages,” James says. “A big challenge was consolidating finances at the end of each month and ensuring that inventory was accurate. This became more and more critical as we started to scale.”

The answer was to bring the different brands into a single solution—but not just any solution. It had to be a user friendly, functional, and an affordable one. TBH worked closely with BDO, a longstanding partner of Cin7, through a series of detailed scoping sessions to understand all of the needs and complexities of their mult-brand operation. After looking at a variety of options, including Sage, BDO recommended Cin7. It’s cost-effectiveness along with good native integrations made it the best inventory management system for their operational needs and long-term vision.

“Cin7 was intuitive and modern in terms of an ERP user experience. It provided us with all the functionality we needed, and we found the cost to be competitive.”

Reducing Implementation Complexities with BDO

Setting up an inventory management solution (IMS) for separate businesses with different requirements in multiple countries felt like it was the equivalent of using too much plastic wrap: a sticky situation.

“We’re a particularly challenging business, and that complexity was made very simple by Sahil,” James says. “We found him and his team to be very clear in terms of what data they needed and what our tasks were. We had to make sure we had all the relevant data from a variety of different sources, but working with Sahil and his team made it easy to identify where the gaps were.”

The priority was to get TBG's Australia-based business up and running on Cin7, which BDO did in a swift three-to-four month timeframe. Once that foundation was in place, they smoothly rolled out the UK and US businesses. James described it as a "copy-and-paste" experience, showcasing just how efficient and repeatable the partner-led implementation process is.

Here's an important nuance that Sahil points out, and it's worth keeping in mind: while the framework may be reusable, each Cin7 implementation still requires tailoring to meet the unique needs of the business. Think of it like having a solid template. Using the right partner gives you a huge head start, but you'll still need to tailor it to fit.

As the TBG team has grown familiar with the system, they continue to benefit from BDO’s assistance. BDO provides valuable ongoing support, regular training session, and shares best practices. Plus, when TBG adds new integrations they consult with BDO’s expert team to confirm their configuration settings, making them a vital part of TBG’s ongoing success.

“Our goal at BDO was to make the implementation process as seamless as possible across TBG’s global operations,” Sahil says. “By simplifying data requirements and identifying gaps early, we helped ensure Cin7 could be deployed quickly and effectively across multiple territories.”

He notes that in addition to the standard setup, he and his team also tackled several customisations and API-driven requirements that weren’t natively supported. “We worked closely with TBG to design and implement tailored solutions that aligned with their operational needs and sustainability goals.”

He adds: “The TBG team has been fantastic to work with: proactive, open to feedback, and highly collaborative. They’ve shown a strong understanding of where custom development is needed and have partnered closely with us to co-design an effective solution.”

Thinking Better Leads to Better Benefits

Thanks to Sahil and the BDO team, TBG’s Cin7 implementation led to more than a few sustainable benefits. One of the biggest has been Cin7’s seamless integrations with critical business applications, like Xero, Shopify, and Amazon. 

Another big benefit? The TBG team now knows exactly what they have in their warehouse, in real time. 

“I’d say our inventory accuracy has improved somewhere between 15 and 20%, which is pretty significant.”

It is significant, as is TBG’s ability to set up different instances within Cin7 for each territory and having a single interface with what James calls a “dropdown menu that allows us to flick through environments.” 

But the benefits don’t end there. James also praises Cin7’s:

• Ease of use and “how to” guides, which has helped them train multiple team members quickly
• Self-service capabilities, which lets team members access the system (based on their permissions) and answer questions without waiting for the logistics team
• Track and traceability functionality, which helps them track specific SKUs to a particular order, customize descriptions of actions, and effectively monitor bundled SKUs (ensuring bundles are always available on their Shopify and Amazon sites)
• Stock take and return capabilities, which helps them understand why products are being returned and where they should go

Additionally, and very importantly, Cin7’s reporting functionality and customizable templates lets them record plastic weight and create attributes that align with specific SKUs. 

“Now that we can run this report at the end of each month, it’s very, very quick and easy for us to understand what’s the total amount of plastic we’ve consumed in any given month, whereas before this, it would have taken many, many weeks to try and establish and work out.”

Crushing It with Cin7

Before implementing Cin7 with the expert help of Sahil and the BDO experts, things at TBG were chaotic but afterwards, it was a completely different story.

“A fair bit of time was obviously spent on cross checking and ensuring that what we were reporting was actually accurate,” James says, “whereas post implementation, more of the time is spent on actually reviewing the data and coming up with a game plan on what to do with the data rather than checking to see if the data is correct.”

With Cin7 on board, TBG has already added supplementary businesses to their environment, easily identifying them by brand, and efficiently bringing them into its burgeoning portfolio.

“We’re certainly looking to grow as a business ourselves, and for the foreseeable future, continuing down the acquisition trail. We see Cin7 as the solution we would like to continue our growth with. It’s been good to use a system that is user friendly and that’s saved us money and time.”

At Cin7, helping businesses achieve sustainable growth by seamlessly connecting business platforms, streamlining processes, and increasing inventory intelligence is our mission, and we’re helping the TBG team fulfill their mission of providing alternative, plant-based materials to single-use plastics. It’s a win-win situation for all!