Member Article

North West e-cigarette firm lighting the way to £6m turnover

A North West designer and manufacturer of e-cigarettes is anticipating trebling last year’s revenues to £6 million after implementing a new computer system.

CN Creative, who split their 50-strong workforce between a manufacturing base at the bioscience facility within the University of Manchester and a sales and distribution site in Blackburn, instructed a Yorkshire based IT firm to better manage the processes of manufacturing, assembling and sales.

Azzure IT, of Sheffield, delivered new business management software for the company, after CN made the decision to change its basic accounting package.

It was the decision to develop a new product, for which it needed approval from the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, that prompted the change.

Azzure’s Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP system appealed to CN Creative. Finance director, Tim Byrne, said: “Azzure really gave us the most confidence. It was their attitude and their honesty that clinched it.

“What we have now are much stronger processes, and better control of those processes, which is vital when you’re growing at such a rate. We have a system that enables us to identify what stock we have and where it is at any given moment.

“Previously, in practice, we had no clear view of that. Now, we’re at a totally different level – we have all the elements to deliver a structured business environment.”

Smoking cessation is big business. In the UK alone, the nicotine replacement therapy market is worth £150 million and e-cigarettes is fast becoming £120 million market in its own right. With such huge demand, CN Creative witnessed dramatic growth in its first few years of existence.

CN Creative was founded in 2008, and received funding from venture capitalists Advent Life Sciences three years later.

The company sells its e-cigarettes through the Intellicig and Vype brands, direct via a website, with Vype also available via retailers, large and small.

CN creative was acquired by British American Tobacco, the world’s second biggest tobacco company, in December 2012

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Graham Vincent .