“The first thing that struck us about Strategix was the level of professionalism demonstrated, in fact it was first-class.”

Background
Formed in 1974 the MacLean Electrical Group is a privately owned specialist electrical wholesaler.

MacLean started trading in the Highlands of Scotland to supply electrical equipment to the developing North Sea offshore oil and gas market. The company has direct operations across the UK and in Houston Texas. MacLean supports its global customer base with a network of alliance partners around the world.

The company has enjoyed organic growth and deployed a strategy of selective acquisition including North Sea Cables Ltd and Noskab Limited. Today, MacLean is an International supplier of bulk electrical materials, roadway lighting systems, instrumentation and fibre optic cables for the Oil, Gas, Petrochemical, Marine and Process industries.

Supporting a diverse infrastructure
Growth does not come about without its challenges, Gordon Carswell, Financial Director of MacLean Electrical said, “We operate a growing
disparate and diverse business. Communication, integration and access to information are critical if we are to maintain success and profitability. Our biggest challenge was to ensure our internal systems and infrastructure would not only support us today, but also underpin the future of the business.”

Choosing the right partner
MacLean’s existing IT systems performed well, it’s simply the case that MacLean outgrew them.

Rather than try to ‘bolt-on’ functionality the business decided to explore what the market had to offer and issued an RFI (request for information) to key Supply Chain solutions providers, including Strategix.

A shortlist of three potential suppliers emerged and each invited to formally tender for the opportunity of providing the solutions and infrastructure that would secure and underpin MacLean’s continued expansion.

Following a rigorous selection process including product demonstrations, presentations, meetings with key people and reference site visits, MacLeans selected OneOffice from Strategix.

Gordon Carswell commented, “The first thing that struck us about Strategix was the level of professionalism demonstrated, in fact it was first-class. We were confident that Strategix OneOffice with its cutting-edge, flexible and component-based solution would quickly deliver business benefits.”

Understanding the need
Having won the business, the hard work began. Peter Lusty, Chief Executive at Strategix said, “Of course we were delighted to be working with MacLean and set about defining their exact requirements. This was a ‘greenfield’ implementation where hardware, software and services would be deployed within stringent Service Level Agreements. The success of the project would be measured by our ability to deliver a solution on time and within budget.”

Key requirements:
• OneOffice to run all of MacLean’s business processes with the company ‘switching on’ additional functionality as required. Additional functionality to include e-commerce; a future MacLean requirement.

• OneOffice must span and streamline the entire business delivering intelligent, real-time information on demand.

• OneOffice must be scalable, no-risk and future proof.

• MacLean to be self-sufficient within 12 months.

Driving value with OneOffice
OneOffice is a new generation of supply chain software that combines operations, finance, customer and event management in one innovative system.

This seamless approach maintains a 360° real-time view of MacLean’s business, providing information as important events occur. Human intervention is automatically sought at critical junctures or if conditions unexpectedly change.

This enables businesses to respond quickly and make well informed decisions.

Gordon Carswell says, “OneOffice has exceeded our initial requirements and opened up many new opportunities for improving process. We continue to add value to the implementation which is driving our business forward.”

A future-proof solution
OneOffice is accelerating MacLean’s growth strategy, minimising risk and future-proofing its IT infrastructure. On Strategix’s recommendation MacLean implemented an IBM hardware platform (including two IBM P-Series P620 e-servers and IBM Storage) which is proving to be reliable, robust and scalable.

One year after going live, MacLean is almost entirely achieved its objective to be self-sufficient from Strategix who has worked hard to exchange information, technical resource and expertise.

Moving forward the next challenge facing MacLean is embracing e-commerce. This is an area that offers significant potential for growth and will further extend MacLean’s reach within its customer-base.

In closing…
Gordon Carswell said, “The implementation of a new business system on this scale is never without some pain, however what stands out is Strategix’s ability to resolve issues quickly and effectively. Their people are outstanding and highly motivated individuals; couple this with the power and flexibility of OneOffice and what you have is a solution that delivers what it states. We are very pleased with the outcome.”