Case Study: Love, Sun and New Horizon Wines

Can business owners work and live exactly the way they want? We think so. Just look at Evelyn and Allan Burns, the owners of New Horizon Wines.

New Horizon Wines Farewells the Nine-to-Five

The couple fell in love with the island-nation of Mauritius back in 2004 when they were married there.

“It’s a beautiful tropical island and the people there are really, genuinely, very friendly,” says Evelyn. “It really captured a place in our hearts.”

While they came from Scotland and settled in Australia after the wedding, their hearts remained in Mauritius. Maybe they’d move there one day, but in the meantime, they worked office jobs in Perth while developing another love, for Australian wines.

They toured vineyards and got to know winemakers everywhere from the nearby Margaret River region to Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia.

An Idea is Born

By the time they returned to Mauritius for their tenth anniversary, Evelyn and Allan had built up an impressive personal cellar from their favourite vineyards. Over their visits through the years, they’d never found Australian wines in Mauritius and saw an opportunity. Thus came their eureka moment, the seed of New Horizon Wines.

“We were looking for a change in lifestyle, combining a place we love with a product we love and market that in Mauritius,” Evelyn said. “We wanted to get into a better lifestyle and out of the nine-to-five thing.”

So, they launched New Horizon Wines in early 2016, an import and distribution business catering to Mauritius’ hospitality sector.

And Cin7 Helped

When it came time to choose a solution, Evelyn and Allan went with Cin7. From her experience as an accountant, Evelyn knew that managing inventory on spreadsheets would become a problem as New Horizon built up its catalog.

She saw how Cin7 could help her avoid “death-by-spreadsheet” and if there were any remaining doubt, our integrations with Xero and Shopify sealed the deal. New Horizon Wines also relies heavily on Cin7’s ability to track landed costs, manage stock in two warehouses, and to process online B2B sales.

Evelyn says that they plan to turn over day-to-day operations to someone else, to enjoy more of the Mauritius lifestyle they dreamed of for years.

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