In response to increasing regulatory control, the business has strengthened its leadership in research and development of alternative, environmentally sound products. A recently installed modern timber treatment facility at the Newport factory will enhance wood performance.
This forward-looking approach is also helping the company to adapt to changes in the market. Once its chief focus was on pole production, with sales to a defined group of major clients. Now Burt Boulton & Haywood targets a broader range of customers and markets. Over the last two years, Datel has helped to upgrade and integrate the company’s IT systems in support of these initiatives.
Interview with Steven Harris, IT Support and Development Assistant at Burt Boulton & Haywood Ltd.
Burt Boulton & Haywood clearly operates against a backdrop of rapid change. How do you ensure your IT systems keep pace?
It’s a continuous evolution, but a significant milestone was around two years ago when Datel formally reviewed the systems then in place: Sage Line 200 for our distribution processes and financials, and Sage CRM for customer relationship management. The latter had been supplied by another business partner.
Our new Datel account manager, Darren Tolley, identified the potential for greater synergy between these two disparate systems. A joined-up solution would provide wide-ranging visibility of our business to help us maintain our competitive edge. Darren recommended migrating to Sage 1000, which Sage had launched a few months earlier.
How did you feel about embarking on such a major transition?
Somewhat hesitant! However, we were assured we would be able to capitalise on the data accumulated over the years and on our investment in training. But, above all, we recognised that the migration to a fully integrated system would mean greater support for our business, from marketing through to customer service. It was an attractive prospect.
Considering the scale of what we were trying to achieve, the implementation went remarkably well. It took a couple of weeks and, to be honest, any delays were down to internal issues around data. Datel did a great job in making the process as painless as possible.
How has the business benefited from a more powerful, integrated system?
Having end-to-end visibility of our business has made a huge difference in our ability to open up new opportunities and provide outstanding customer service. To give a specific instance: previously sales people could not see what was happening at the back-end; now they can do a full sales analysis on their customers, by product, sales history, credit record, and so on. The system provides all the information needed to understand customers better and build good relationships, while dashboards give a ready view of key performance indicators.
It sounds as if Sage 1000 has facilitated a change in the way you do business?
Through its inherent functionality, we’re becoming more marketing focused and more proactive at getting out there and selling. For instance, if we have a large stock of a particular product, such as fencing timber, we can now identify who has bought that item in the past and target them to see if they require more.
Delivering quality customer service is a priority for Burt Boulton & Haywood. What support does the system provide in this area?
Our sales administrators are the main users of the system. They deal frequently with our customers and have all the data – from the original enquiry, through order processing, to invoicing – in one place to respond to queries. With a single integrated system, they don’t have to waste time switching out of one system and into another; the necessary information is readily available on screen. This means an instant, professional response to the customer and increased efficiency for the team.
What’s more, with a single, centralised repository of information in place, anyone is equipped to help the customer. When quotations were done on paper and faxed through to customers, it was difficult for someone else to pick up and resolve a query if the sales manager was out of the office. Now, they can view a record of previous communications, understand where the customer is coming from, and normally answer the query there and then.
Customer feedback is essential to continuous improvement. A new project is under way to monitor our service on a monthly basis by polling a number of customers and canvassing their views. Again, the system will enable us to pull data from the back-end to view recent orders, and contact the customer to check everything has gone well. Of course, this will also create opportunities to discuss any additional requirements they may have.
We’re continually broadening access to the system, too, to further improve service. Our production managers can now monitor outstanding orders to ensure timely fulfilment.
While all these developments have been taking place over the past couple of years, we’ve come to rely on excellent standards of support from Datel. They add value to our business and are always very prompt at responding to any issues.
How has the system moulded to the way you work?
It’s been an on-going process. For example, a few months ago Datel implemented EDI (electronic data interchange) for us. Our larger customers send us up to twenty orders daily and EDI has allowed us to streamline and accelerate order processing, which also lowers our administration costs. We’ve dramatically reduced reliance on spreadsheets and are seeking to eliminate the remaining few.
What does the future hold for Burt Boulton & Haywood?
These are challenging times for any business in a competitive sector like ours and we will be drawing on Sage 1000 increasingly to help us to develop new opportunities. We know there is functionality within the system that we haven’t yet fully explored and we have every intention of doing so in the months ahead.