Baker Tilly and Tayto Snacks: An IFS support partnership journey

The Epiphany IFS UK&I User Group Conference is a premier event designed to bring together professionals from across the IFS community throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. During a conference session, Baker Tilly and Tayto Snacks shared insights gained from their decade long IFS support partnerships.

Michael McGinn, IT Manager from Tayto Snacks, along with Baker Tilly Business Development Manager, Lorant Horvath, discussed how Baker Tilly has been instrumental in supporting the company through their IFS journey, providing essential services that ensured smooth operations and strategic enhancements.

Baker Tilly's comprehensive IFS services

Horvath showcased the end-to-end digital services provided by Baker Tilly, highlighting a few of the features of our Structured Support and Continuum services.

Key takeaways:

• Structured Support is designed to aid in-house support resources, ensuring everything runs smoothly post IFS implementation. The service is fully service-level agreement (SLA) driven and available 24/7, providing a fixed pricing basis for unlimited usage with no additional expenses.
• Continuum focuses on mostly minor IFS enhancements. By setting an agreed upon number of hours needed to carry out enhancements, this model avoids the lengthy cycle of “request, quote and approve” by directly identifying the problem and allocating relevant resources.

Digital transformation success with Baker Tilly

Operating from a single site, Tayto Snacks is Ireland’s largest crisp and snack food manufacturer with over 330 employees and 9000+ orders every month. Tayto Snacks sales representatives utilize tablets with system-integrated IFS and third-party logistics, generating 95% of their sales revenue. With a three-person IT team who handle a wide range of support responsibilities, the company currently outsources all business process changes and relies largely on their service providers for IT support.

Tayto Snacks started with IFS implementation in April 2007 and moved to Apps9 in 2018. In collaboration with Baker Tilly, they executed two key projects:

• IFS manufacturing implementation in 2010: Tayto’s initial local IFS partner lacked experience in implementing manufacturing processes. They engaged Baker Tilly to assist in implementing shop orders, bills of materials (BOMs) and material requirements planning (MRP) as well as integrating these systems with a structured pallet labeling system for raw material backflush and finished goods updates. Despite initial challenges, the project was successful, and Baker Tilly was appreciated for their expertise in IFS and their capability to deliver on the implementation.
• IFS upgrade in 2017: The company needed an upgrade from Apps7 to Apps9 and was seeking support to carry out the procedure. During the project, Baker Tilly handled business process mapping and upgrades while IFS focused on technical upgrades. Without any adverse impact on business processes, the project went live as planned within 12 months.

Continuous support and future plans

Baker Tilly has been an IFS Support partner for Tayto Snacks since going live in September 2018. Baker Tilly’s role involves daily monitoring of systems, promptly addressing issues and providing detailed reports. The company relies on Baker Tilly for day-to-day support issues which includes logging calls for any questions that Tayto might have regarding IFS. Some support issues evolve into development projects, where Baker Tilly implements changes to the business processes as needed

Additionally, the Baker Tilly team conducts regular monthly reviews with Tayto Snacks’ dedicated Customer Support Manager to ensure timely progress on business process improvements, address support ticket resolutions, and prioritize any critical issues that require immediate attention within the IFS environment.

Next on their implementation list, Tayto Snacks is looking to work with Baker Tilly to transition to IFS Cloud with a 2025 go-live goal.

Baker Tilly and IFS

As an IFS Platinum RSI partner, Baker Tilly tailors each IFS Cloud implementation to suit the specific needs of the client, their industry and their team’s business transformation objectives. Contact our team to learn about our IFS implementation methodology and start your implementation journey.