Wholesalers
Customer: Caswellsgroup
Site link: www.caswellsgroup.com
Remote K8 implementation delivers efficiencies for Caswellsgroup
Unusual trading conditions have arisen for many businesses over recent months, and for one company, the coronavirus pandemic came just as it planned to move to a new ERP software provider.
Caswellsgroup, a leading supplier of industrial consumables, was due to go live on Kerridge Commercial Systems’ (KCS) K8 solution when lockdown rules were enforced. Still keen to go live with its new 32-user system, Project Manager John Caswell explained that KCS put forward the idea of a remote implementation.
“I’ve worked on system implementations as project manager before, but I’ve never done or considered a remote implementation,” explained John. “Having said that, I’ve worked remotely from home for about 30 years so I know that with the right mindset, these things are possible.
“In a very short space of time, I thought ‘well why not, let’s give it a go’.”
Caswellsgroup met members of the KCS team before lockdown, so the team still experienced some of the personal touch a company would expect from installing a new system.
A number of tools and technologies were put in place to open lines of communication between KCS and Caswellsgroup and give the project the best possible chance of success. “We used a mixture of Trello, Microsoft Teams, email, text and telephone calls, basically everything apart from face to face. One of the positive outcomes was this meant we had better records of the process than we would have done if everything had been carried out in person.
“KCS took a pragmatic view of the project and how we would get it from A to B while not being on site. The important thing we found throughout the process is that you don’t need to be a technical whizz to make the implementation a success - it really is intuitive.”
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We decided the implementation would be overseen by two project managers. For us, this was quite a positive because it allowed people to get on with their normal jobs; more people would have got involved if the implementation was carried out on site.
- John Caswell, Project Manager, Caswellsgroup
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