For specialist parts distributor, Aerco, Strategix OneOffice was the natural choice for integrating every link in its supply chain to increase sales and achieve previously unattainable levels of customer satisfaction.

For Aerco the decision was easy: streamline the supply chain and improve customer relationship management or lose market share. The result has been impressive. From a manual, paper-based system to OneOffice, the supply chain management solution from Strategix. The transition has not only seen Aerco achieve a 10% increase in sales over the previous year but significantly improve customer relations. Extraordinary performance; made even more so in a declining market characterised by tough competition where even the smallest discount can make the difference between sales success or failure.

Managing Director, Rob Laughton explains: “With an ever-growing product range, it became obvious over the years that paper systems are not going to be able to handle the complexities of a modern, highly competitive distribution business. We are currently processing upwards of 50 thousand parts for our customers. Maintaining control over a list like that just wasn’t getting any easier with the old pen and ink system.”

Aerco is a stockist and distributor of quality electrical and electro-mechanical components to the aviation, military, medical and transportation markets. That means they supply customers such as BAE with high spec, high tech widgets. These include fuses, circuit breakers, contactors, LEDs, lamps, solenoids and relays which are integrated into aircraft, trains or battleship systems.

“In fact, we supplied a BAE sub-contractor with connectors for the new A380 Airbus,” Laughton attests. “These items were used to connect drive motors on the undercarriage to the aircraft control system, so when they need to isolate the components for servicing, they are readily disconnected.”

Many customers are also in the medical machinery business, so Aerco parts also find their way into large pieces of capital equipment such as massive MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanners found in hospitals.

Much of the Aerco customer-base is sub-contractors for the main manufacturer and sometimes even further downstream. It happens that at any one time Aerco can be dealing with several customers all involved in the same end project.

Laughton explains the stock control set-up at Aerco: “We hold a huge inventory of the most frequently ordered stock and the fast-moving items in our Sussex warehouse where they can be drawn off and delivered with minimum delay. We also act as a warehousing facility for larger projects that demand a scheduled delivery of a number of parts, say 100 items every month for a year.”

Aerco anticipated their impending stock control dilemma as far back as 1995 when they were still using hand-written record cards to operate this system. So Laughton and his colleagues agreed to invest in an integrated system to support all of their stock control and accounting processes. After a tendering process involving eight candidate solutions providers, Laughton reduced the list down to Strategix and one other.

“In the end, the Strategix offering won hands down because of the company’s ability to tailor any aspect of the system to suit our particular requirements,” Laughton continued.

Laughton reports that the Strategix system took six months to implement. The company was meticulous in ensuring that all their parts numbers and descriptions were recorded accurately. This necessitated hiring temporary staff and moving a few key Aerco staff away from their normal work to undertake this time-consuming manual keying-in process. The huge inventory of items in stock also had to be transferred onto the Strategix system before it could go live. By 1996, the company was ready and effected the changeover from the old system to the new one.

At the time, Aerco was also running a Pegasus accounting system, which was also replaced by the Strategix system.

“With the payroll, asset ledger, audited accounts, migrated across to Strategix, it very quickly got to a point where there was virtually no aspect of our operation that didn’t depend on the Strategix system,” Laughton recounts. “From warehousing to sales to delivery to quality control, everybody within the company was online and sharing the same up-to-date information whatever their role within the organisation.”

But Laughton wanted more. So when Strategix introduced ‘OneOffice’, he was quick to realise the customer relationship benefits it offered. The company was still operating on a discrete contact management system and he was keen to bring this important function within a single Strategix system.

“Having a stand-alone system that holds the information for you was not enough,” Laughton stated. “I strongly believe that the way forward for the company is via a comprehensive customer relationship management capability allied to our complete supply chain operation. We need to provide a professional, accurate and knowledgeable service to our customers to ensure we win tenders and increase sales. OneOffice gives us the ability to do that.”

For Laughton, customer relationships begin with the first call for a quotation. He realises that calls will also be made to several competitors before a decision is made on who to place the order with. This means the Aerco sales people must deliver accurate, consistent and competitive pricing combined with an assurance of availability and delivery that meets the customer’s schedule. They must also have the ability to be proactive and follow up enquiries several days later to discover, and hopefully influence, the customer’s decision.

“OneOffice offers us a sophisticated customer relationship management capability thanks to two key functions: a graphical ‘dashboard’ and a timely ‘alert’ feature. We see these as contributing greatly to customer satisfaction.”

The dashboard functionality within OneOffice means that the Aerco sales people, or anyone else authorised to log on to the system, can be much more proactive with their customers. The dashboard is a powerful and flexible mechanism for building customised, context-sensitive information into the OneOffice WorkSpace. It can be configured to display key information to the user in the context of the task they are performing.

For example, when a sales person selects a customer record in OneOffice the dashboards will automatically show information such as previous sales orders, contact notes and specific product promotions available. This means that the information people need to perform their roles effectively is always in front of them.

“The dashboards are a major advance over traditional systems,” claims Laughton. “Previously users had to run individual enquiries to learn the details of, say, previous orders, or prices, or stock availability. With the dashboards, it’s all there automatically for the sales person to see and respond to. This not only saves valuable time, but also ensures accuracy, consistency and that our quotes are both competitive and profitable.”

Another aspect of OneOffice that is vital to the sales process is the timely ‘alert’ feature that demands human intervention if conditions within the business change, for example if a supplier unexpectedly changes a delivery date. This ensures that users are confident that they will be provided with real-time information throughout the sales cycle of the order if there is anything that requires their intervention.
“In our business, it’s rare for a supplier to phone a customer and tell him that an order may be a couple of days late, so the alert function has really helped to differentiate us from the competition,” claims Laughton. “We’ve not had the tools in the past to enable us to do that.”

Laughton’s policy is that it’s better to tell a customer as early as possible that some hitch may occur in the supply chain, rather than leaving it too late, resulting in a disgruntled customer.

“We’ve found that most of our customers really appreciate the advance warning and thank us for it,” Laughton continued. “Then they can organise their schedule to work around it.”

Laughton sees great things for OneOffice in the future. His objective is to maximise the use of the system and fully-exploit the power of the customer relationship management capability. In the first six months after OneOffice was installed that the company recorded a 10% year-on-year increase in sales. At the same time, based on the company’s regular customer survey, customer satisfaction has significantly increased too, with an increase in positive comments as a result of service level improvements.

Laughton has the last word: “Already, we’ve introduced a forward-looking ‘progress team’ who are constantly monitoring future deliveries and working within OneOffice to make sure our customers not only get their orders on time, but also receive the best, most efficient and proactive service in the business.”


Lessons learnt
• Immediate access to up-to-date and accurate product and customer information is key to delivering high levels of customer satisfaction

• OneOffice delivers ROI in terms of increased sales, supporting the sales effort, satisfied customers, repeat orders, less stressed staff – and raising the bar for the competition

• Using technology to underpin business processes is the only option for Aerco’s fast-moving, highly complex and price-sensitive operation with a need to maintain growth and achieve even higher standards of customer satisfaction, Arrow found the best supply chain management solution with Strategix.