Marketing and Information Management
Service: Marketing and Information Management | Sector: Private Sector | Industry: Manufacturing
Clients Brief
Linney Cooper is a highly respected carpet and floor covering specialists, with a history that can be traced as far back as 1949. Their high value clients include yacht makers and organisations requiring historic replicas. The quality of their services - from design through to installation – has been recognised by the award of two Royal Warrants.
The company had defined an IT strategy to meet the needs of the business, but lacked the confidence to proceed with the systems implementation. Linney Cooper still had some concerns about making a purchasing decision:
Is the level of expenditure justified in the current economic climate?Would the proposed solution provide the right levels of return on investment?
Is there a cheaper option that would not be too much of a compromise?
Findings
Principality’s objective was to provide a reasoned basis to make a go/no go decision on systems implementation. This saw a 3 day project delivered over 4 weeks comprising:
- Business process analysis – to assess the order of magnitude of the amount of time and overhead cost incurred by the current methods of work and systems used and to evaluate how much this could be reduced by re-design and new systems.
- Identify and appraise alternative solution options.
- Produce cost benefit analysis of each solution option that will allow management to have confidence in any decision made.
- Conduct a risk assessment of the options, including a no change option.
A considerable amount of inefficiencies were found. Management were aware of this but had previously been unable to quantify them. The main drivers for these inefficiencies are:
- Multiple data replication
- Multiple inputs and outputs from a variety of data storage locations
- Reliance on paper – too often information is printed out from storage to be actioned / reviewed.
Recommendations
Linney Cooper selected MasterPiece from two choices of measuring and estimating systems.
MasterPiece uses the SQL Server database on standalone Tablet PCs was integrated / interfaced to the back office system.
Outcome
The opportunity savings will pay for the system within 3 years.
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