European Heritage

(Kerridge Commercial Systems now offer Print Manager in partnership with ADP)

European Heritage, established in 1989, is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of high quality tiles. Based in Dawes Road, Fulham, London, its series of premier showrooms display a wide range of stunning tile and stone products from all over the world. Most of the products on display are available from extensive stocks held at their two local warehouses.

The business is run by Peter Hutchinson and his wife Helen. European Heritage’s customers are divided roughly 50% trade and contract and 50% retail. They also supply a range of adhesives and sundries, including under-floor heating and wetroom materials. Their aim is to be to be the ‘one-stop’ trade and retail tile shop.

Introduction

James Dow, Systems Manager at European Heritage has been with the company for five years. James explained, "When I started working here much of what we did was hand written. We had got to the stage where we needed to review the business processes so we could move the business forward."

Helen Hutchinson added, "The previous system just wasn’t working for us; it was, by comparison, archaic and was unable to keep pace with our growing business requirements. There wasn’t any delivery system, pick system and the stock figures were always corrupt."

European Heritage approached The Tile Association for advice on tile trading software. James explained, "I contacted The Tile Association, who recommended *Kerridge Commercial Systems as a leading business software solutions provider to the tile industry. It was reassuring to us that *Kerridge Commercial Systems were strong in the tile market place, so I made a call."

Helen added, "A friend of ours in the tile business was also using *Kerridge Commercial Systems. He invited us to his premises for the day to see how their business operated using K8. They sold it to us. They put the cherry on the top. They said it was the best thing they ever did."

*Kerridge Commercial Systems were contacted and asked to specify a solution that would meet the needs of European Heritage.

Following a series of in-depth demonstrations, European Heritage placed an order for the K8 system in late 2005. Helen explained, "We agreed a project plan to convert from the old system to K8. *Kerridge Commercial Systems consultants were extremely helpful and understood our requirements. Their skills gave us huge confidence and the standard of service we received was as fantastic then as it is today. We went live on the 17 April 2006 and have never looked back."

K8 – The Business Benefits

Describing some of the benefits that the K8 system provides to European Heritage, Helen explains, "K8 has made us so much more organised, we have never had a system like this before, we can keep such a tight control. The system offers extensive functionality all of which we are keen to exploit."

James added, "The thing I like about *Kerridge Commercial Systems is that I keep learning new things. The training facilities are fantastic. The consultants are always happy to help and there’s always something new to learn. One example is the advanced analysis course I recently attended. Since completing it, I have been exploring all the elements of advanced analysis and am amazed at the extent of the functionality within K8. This enables us to get all of the important information at the touch of a button and drill into it if we require the detail." Helen explained "Another reason we decided to implement the K8 solution was its adaptability. It met with our exact needs. For example, we choose not to allow COD’s and have therefore set K8 up to prevent goods being shipped without payment, unless of course the customer has a credit account. We have to have tight controls within the business. K8 meets with those controls perfectly and is intuitive and easy to use. It works brilliantly."

Helen continues "I like the fact that every day you can just flick a button and you can see what the turnover is. I can see what cash I’m taking; I can look at the cash analysis and know the stock figures, all that is just a flick of a button." James explained "We have recently taken advantage of the ADP Print Plan solution. This provides us with a fully managed printer which is connected via the internet to ADP’s offices. This enables *Kerridge Commercial Systems to deliver toner cartridges to us on a ‘just-in-time’ basis. Our calculations proved that this would be the most efficient and cost effective way to print within the business."

James continues "This coupled with ADP’s ‘Print Manager’ enables us to produce documents of the highest quality which we can either; print, fax or email to our customers and suppliers."

Since the implementation in 2006, European Heritage has gone from strength to strength. With year-on-year growth in excess of 25%, they are now selling approximately 12,500 square metres of tiles per month. Helen explains "when I actually think how far we’ve come, K8 has made us super efficient and has been a huge asset to the business. We would never have achieved our current turnover without the right system to support us."

James added "K8 is effectively the heart of the business, if we were to lose K8 today the business would suffer tremendously".

The Next Step

Attending *Kerridge Commercial Systems’ customer open day, European Heritage were shown the latest ‘Business Intelligence’ tool. This tool will enable them to take a further step forward, in the proactive management of the business, via a series of alerts and key performance indicators. It also provides ‘snap-shot’ trading information that may require immediate action. European Heritage are looking forward to taking advantage of this additional functionality in the very near future.

James sums up "In our search for a business management solution, we talked to many industry contacts – *Kerridge Commercial Systems’ K8 was highly recommended to us. Not content, we then visited *Kerridge Commercial Systems’ customers to see the system in action – again, the feedback was superb. Three years on, we’re the ones recommending *Kerridge Commercial Systems. If you’re in the tile business you’d be foolhardy to look elsewhere."