The Elliott Group is the UK’s largest supplier of relocatable accommodation facilities to a broad range of industries. Their products include cabins, containers, storage units and modular buildings. But an international operating site requires streamlined processes. The need for centralized systems, ability to get an overview from the data across the whole group, negotiate with the suppliers and make remarkable savings at the same time was what made Elliott contact Columbus IT.
The Elliott Group
The Elliott Group is the UK’s largest supplier of relocatable accommodation facilities to a broad range of industries. Their products include cabins, containers, storage units and modular buildings. But an international operating site requires streamlined processes. The need for centralized systems, ability to get an overview from the data across the whole group, negotiate with the suppliers and make remarkable savings at the same time was what made Elliott contact Columbus IT.
Live and accurate management information
Elliott works in a fast-moving environment and a lot of decisions are made every day throughout the whole depot network. “Having an online IT-system with immediate availability of data is crucial to our decision-making,” says Paul O’Kelly, Managing Director of Elliott.
The possibility of accessing live information enables to see the total company, the total hire division or each individual area within the hire division at just a glance. “Using Navision gives us a lot more tools in terms of analysis and in terms of the operational management division,” comments Neil Broad, Financial Accountant of Elliott.
Elliott faced typical problems that arise from vast amounts of mixed information. “One of the major problems we’ve always had as a big company is people coming to the table with different reports from different systems – sometimes maybe even the same data, but from a different angle. Now everybody comes up with the same information, far less time is taken up in meetings and they get straight to the point,” Peter Whittle, Head of IT, explains the advantages of Elliott’s new solution.
Significant cost reductions
Elliott has just completed an acquisition in combining two finance departments of the two companies and has already made a saving of £120 000 per annum based on better systems and better processes. The company’s turnover is £150m per annum, which means that by definition, the turnover per working day is £600 000. Clearly, Navision is a very good choice and allows them to meet all their diverse business needs. They are expecting to save an excess of £4.2m per annum.
Faster, more efficient manufacturing
In the past, the factories were manufacturing different products. It was very difficult when certain factory was overloaded with work. Now it is the opposite, work can be rerouted, because all the information is there. Forecasting has become much more accurate. It means that lead times on getting their products out have dropped considerably. The lead time used to be 12 weeks, but since employees can now see the load well in advance, the predictions are much more accurate. The lead times make up only half what they used to, that is 6 weeks.
Paul O’Kelly, Managing Director of Elliott, says, “Being able to centralize procurement, look at the data across the whole group and negotiate with our suppliers, we have made significant savings. So far in the last 6 months we have negotiated savings that represent about £2m per year to the organization.”
Better customer service
Customers in distribution industry are very demanding when it comes to product quality, the price and availability of the product, the lead times etc. Now Elliott can respond immediately to customer requests. That was not possible before Columbus IT’s solution.
Increasing sales revenue
While analysing the different aspects of the solution that have been beneficial to Elliott, sales and marketing need to be mentioned. The solution integrates separate communication systems to a whole. Mary Hunter, Managing Director of Columbus IT Partner UK, states, “The Elliott Group has got 45 sites and rather than having separate systems, we have one central system which has got the right information to improve their sales for using their existing customers.”
Marketing Manager of Elliott, Rod Hepper, notes, “Navision has been an enormous help to our tele-sales team. We have a project which is cross-selling our products across all of our divisions to our key customers. We have a target of €3m in additional business. Without Navision we would have found it very difficult to achieve that.”
Strong partnership
Working with Columbus IT has been a pleasure for Elliott. “Columbus has been very good to us. We’ve worked very well in partnership together. Their people have always taken the time to sit down and talk to us and work with us. Given us advice on different ways of doing things, understanding what our business is about. We have been through a massive change process and they’ve helped us, encouraged us, and worked well with us. It meets every aspect of our business, it meets all our needs,” says Peter Whittle, Head of IT of Elliott. Managing Director Paul O’Kelly adds, “Having the best system in our industry, which I believe we have – Navision – is a key value adding factor.”
People in Elliott are convinced that they have got a product that will stay in the company for a long time. They are confident that the planned long-term partnership is exactly what it will be.