Universal Plumbing Supplies

Managing Director and owner James Brady knew that he had become a victim of his own success and that continued growth had resulted in his business having too much stock and not enough management control.

Formed in 2001 Universal Plumbing Supplies had grown to three branches in the Southampton area of Hampshire with a turn over approaching two million pounds. However, each day simply no longer had enough hours in it to allow James to manage his business as well as he had.

James said: “I knew I needed to change things, we had outgrown our Sage software system but the headache of changing; the lack of time to implement the change; and the costs involved meant I did put it off.”
Eventually James was convinced by merchant and distributor systems specialist Blue Rock Systems that installing Intact software in each branch and connecting the PC terminals via a broadband would add back hours into each day and allow Universal to be managed with confidence again.
In September 2006 the new system went live. James said: “I was nervous that the whole system would cause me huge problems on day one despite running the Sage and the Intact system in tandem at first”.
“Blue Rock assured me the transfer would be smooth but it was better even than I was promised”.“The improvements in the business were immediate”.

“Most importantly is we are really back in control of our stock again. We have reduced the amount of stock held by 18% and cut our purchases by between £15K and £30K a month”.

“Vitally we have been able to achieve this without affecting our level of service to our customers – the percentage of orders satisfied from stock is the same or has improved slightly whilst still continuing to grow the business”.
“Our customers like the new system as we now have real-time stock information as the stock levels on the system are automatically adjusted when an order is taken so we no longer have to check the stores physically while a customer hangs on the phone”.
“We have reduced the hours required by our book keeper as a direct result of the system from three days a week to three days a month!”
One of the main reasons James chose the Intact system from Blue Rock was the flexibility the package offered.
James said: “We decided not to have a central buying function although the system could have done that. I would rather let each manager run their own branch but when they are ordering stock they see in real-time if another branch has what they want and call it off there rather than the manufacturers”. “The management information the Intact software produces is first-class. I now know exactly how each branch is performing in terms of sales; gross and net profit; and stock levels on a daily basis if I want to.”
James summed up his experience eight months after installing his new system: “I was a bit sceptical when Blue Rock approached me but I’m now a huge convert! It was the best £30K I have ever spent on the business – I just wish I had installed the system years ago.”