Turning up the heat with Sage Line 500

The company
Hamworthy Heating is a UK based designer and manufacturer of innovative commercial heating equipment. With clients ranging from building contractors to specialist boiler consultants, the company’s tailored heating solutions are installed in hospitals, offices and factories throughout the world.

In December 2001, Hamworthy became a private company, following its departure from parent company, Powell Duffryn Limited. Since then, Hamworthy has achieved annual turnover in the region of £20 million. The company’s boiler manufacturing division is based in Poole in Dorset, whilst the flue manufacturing division is based in Birmingham.

“CPiO continue to work very closely with us to ensure
that we get the most from our initial investment in Sage.”
Ian Roe, IT Manager

The challenge
Hamworthy decided to address both business processes and IT solutions. As a smaller, independent business Hamworthy had an opportunity to implement more efficient, effective processes that would extend the company’s reputation for quality, reliability and customer service. A key element was the transformation of the sales process, from pre-sales to post sales, by providing all customer facing staff with access to the same consistent, detailed customer information.

Hamworthy decided to implement a fully functional ERP solution that integrated with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to link all aspects of the business such as sales, customer service, engineering and production.

Having undertaken a thorough market review, the company purchased the Sage Line 500 ERP system and SalesLogix CRM from CPiO.

The solution
The integrated Sage Line 500 and SalesLogix solution was implemented by CPiO, replacing the company’s existing 20-year-old solution. A key element of the new solution is Sage’s Configurator software, which has transformed the complex process of creating unique quotes for potential customers. This had traditionally been both time consuming and dependent on a high degree of employee skill.

CPiO worked closely with Hamworthy as it undertook a business process review, to ensure the most efficient implementation of the Sage Line 500 and SalesLogix software. The modular solution is fully integrated, with customisable user screens enabling the company to tailor information views to meet the needs of specific job functions.

The information within Configurator is held in SalesLogix for access by sales and pre-sales staff and when an order is received, automatically creates orders in Sage. All quotes are stored in SalesLogix to provide the company with information to identify trends and drive future business plans.

“ The entire process is faster, more accurate and requires less product experience, which means new staff can become productive more quickly.”
Ian Roe, IT Manager

The benefits
Hamworthy Heating now has all the customer data in one place. In addition to reducing the cost of the quotation process, this information can be used by the pre-sales team to follow up opportunities. Complete visibility of the customer information enables effective and timely sales calls so the company can make the most of business opportunities.

By adopting Sage Configurator, Hamworthy Heating has significantly improved the efficiency and accuracy of the quotation process. The Configurator knowledge base takes you through the quotation process, ensuring compatibility of products and building up the job price at the same time.

By integrating CRM with a back-office solution that can handle the configuration, quotation and sales order processes, Hamworthy can improve efficiency and ensure quality of service to customers. SalesLogix has been rolled out to technical and service staff. The system has improved the scheduling and management of engineers who are now able to view customer history, product and parts information required for each job. The sales staff also have up to date information on customer history and the status of pending quotes or jobs.

The future
Hamworthy is now in a position to really begin to maximise its investment in the Sage front and back office solution. “ We have come a long way in a relatively short period of time, embracing new processes against new software and achieving real gains from all of the hard work. Now we can look to forward to a period of consolidation that will enable us to refine the use of all of the functionality available to us,” comments Ian Roe, IT Manager for Hamworthy Heating.