Marston and Langinger use Navision

Microsoft Business Solutions delivers integrated software benefits at Marston and Langinger

Marston and Langinger manufactures and sells hardwood conservatories, glazed structures, joinery and garden room products.

Add-on business includes the sale of furniture and furnishings.

The company, which has a retail showroom and design studio in London and offices with manufacturing facilities in Fakenham, Norfolk, has a reputation as a leader in terms of design and quality of construction.

The company employs 115 staff and with an annual turnover of seven million pounds.

An individually designed conservatory from Marston and Langinger is often the centerpiece of a customer's home.

With prices ranging from 20,000 pounds to more than 500,000 pounds for a project, customer expectations are understandably high.

Operating in an exclusive market for tailor-made conservatory constructions, Marston and Langinger prioritise good customer relationships.

"It is our reputation that draws customers in," says Neil Minns, Financial Accountant.

The company used several different accounting and management systems until a significant growth in business revealed major inefficiencies - threatening the company's ability to maintain its well-established reputation.

"Our various systems were simply not up to the job," says Minns.

A customer database, a document management system, separate spreadsheet reporting and hand- written purchase orders were just some of the diverse systems that Marston and Langinger used.

Inevitably, information was lost or isolated in places that only a few people had access to.

"There were just five people that had access to account information," says Minns.

"Our production department used to spend four days re-analyzing reports from accounts just so that they could produce their own reports," explains IT Manager Peter Langford.

Efficiency suffered and the lack of consistent and accessible information threatened customer service.

Projects involve people based in two separate locations.

For example, designers and sales staff are based in London, whereas accounts, Computer Aided Design and manufacturing staff are based in Norfolk.

Using the old systems it was not possible to determine a project's status without consulting individual departments.

Information could not be centrally stored or managed.

"Our ability to follow up on sales opportunities was also impaired," says Minns.

A conservatory project offers several opportunities for follow-up sales, for instance by offering new furniture and fittings or replacing blinds and lighting.

Lack of information about who had bought what, where and when prohibited this business.

In particular, historical customer information, stored off-system, created a major problem for customer visibility.

Solution.

Marston and Langinger needed an integrated solution to solve two main challenges.

The first challenge was to replace the disparate systems with one single solution that was flexible enough to handle future business requirements.

The second challenge was to provide a central information point detailing all documents and interactions for every customer and contact.

"We wanted to ensure that everyone could see each and every contact or customer interaction," says Minns.

A number of possible products were considered.

Integration, the ability to customise and available support were high on Marston and Langinger's list of priorities.

A Microsoft Business Solutions Navision system had been noticed two years earlier, putting it immediately into the frame as a candidate.

Demonstrations from Microsoft Navision partner Timeweave were decisive in helping Marston and Langinger to understand the capabilities of the Microsoft Navision system.

"Timeweave demonstrated the potential of the system very well, especially in the areas of CRM, estimating and invoicing," says Minns.

"In particular, Microsoft Navision included a relationship management offering that was customisable to our needs and met the challenge of providing a single point to view all information regarding an individual contact." Customer relationships are so important to Marston and Langinger that the CRM solution was implemented before the financials element.

"This meant a lot of work in a short space of time," says IT manager Peter Langford.

"We had planned to implement the financials part first but management was keen to implement the CRM part because our customer focus is so vital to our business." The implementation involved about 40 employees ranging from sales staff to manufacturing shop floor workers.

They had to get up to speed quickly because in just eight weeks the company went from the initial order to a live CRM solution.

As a result, employees were quickly able to see the value of the new system.

The customised features that enabled staff to do their jobs more effectively helped acceptance of the new system.

Customisation included modifying the document management feature, allowing a Microsoft Word document (for example estimates, order confirmations and accounts correspondence) to be generated from within Microsoft Navision, stored against a contact, and to be viewable to all.

A customised e-mail attachment routine was also written to avoid the need to maintain separate data in Microsoft Outlook and Exchange.

Conclusion.

The entire implementation was completed on time and on budget over a period of five months.

This included installing the financials functionality around the end of the financial year.

Disruption to business, however, was minimal because staff at Timeweave provided all the necessary training and support.

Teamwork between the solution centre and Marston and Langinger also contributed to an effective implementation.

"A major contribution to the success of the project has been the commitment of both parties in recognising the importance of professional project management and ensuring realistic targets are set and met," says Tony Nicholas of Timeweave.

Replacing Marston and Langinger's numerous incompatible systems with a single robust system that allows data and knowledge sharing has had an extremely positive effect on customer focus and efficiency.

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