We may be in the midst of difficult economic times but Andrew Rutter, Director of DTW Ceramics Ltd, hasn’t let it get in the way of future growth. Whatever the economic conditions, he still wants the best for his business, staff and customers. His winning strategy is to develop a long-term relationship with Blue Rock Systems using Intact software to work smarter, make life easier and innovate through technology.


On the day we chose to interview Andrew Rutter he had already taken his constitutional 2 hour run -this time up a snow laden Butser Hill in West Sussex. In addition when he arrived at the office he spent an hour with the lads from the showroom to shovel off the snow and ice from DTW’s forecourt.


Driven. There’s no better word to describe Andy Rutter, Director, at DTW Ceramics Limited in Portsmouth. His love of fitness is only matched by his dedication for his business and the people who work with him (and we stress “with” as opposed to “for”).


DTW are a leading, independent, distributor of tiles and associated products based on the south coast. DTW distribute tiles to Independent and National Tile retailers. The business also supports local trade installers as well as serving the retail sector with both tiles and more recently bathrooms.


Andy laid his first tile when he was 13, working at weekends and during holidays alongside a tradesman. He left secondary school on the Friday and started full time work as a contractor on the Monday. By the time he was 18 had started his own tile installation business.


Having spotted a niche in the market place he decided to start supplying tiles and in 1996 formed DTW Ceramics.


“I’ve always wanted the best for my business and the people who work there as I passionately believe this supports our ideal of providing the best service, product and value for money to our customers”, stated Andy.


“We genuinely source our products from around the world, which means, normally, that we are always seen as competitive and providing a superb range. More importantly, however, the team at DTW has a genuine desire to put in 110% all the time and we look after them as a result, both in terms of working environment and financial incentives – everyone in the business from the Cleaner to the Directors have a performance related bonus structure. As a result the bulk of my staff have been here for between 10 and 18 years and last week when the rest of the British Work Force were struggling to get in to the work place, the majority of mine did.”


Andy and his fellow Director Gavin Buckner pride themselves on the range of stock that they supply and their ability to deliver the items to their trade customers within 48 hours. The 90 catalogues of stock are held in the 32,000 square ft warehouse in Portsmouth.


Since the business started Andy incorporated Information Technology into the business.


“I am a great advocate of technology and wherever possible I will endeavour to make our lives easier and more effective through innovation”, continued Andy.
The initial systems at DTW were Amstrad PC’s driven by floppy disk drives. Shortly after Andy installed Sage Line 50 and invested in a bespoke trading solution because he felt that nothing in the market place catered for his industry.


“The bespoke system was really very good and I don’t regret, for a moment, in making the investment as for many years we had an advantage over our competition. However I became increasingly aware that the bespoke element, supported by a single company, posed a serious threat for the business and decided upon reviewing the solution”.


This process started in 2007. The teams’ final choice came after two years and the review of six well known systems.


“We actually came down to a shortlist of 2. Both systems had experience and standard functionality to handle the complexity of tile distribution, trade and retail sales. We unanimously chose to go the Intact route via Blue Rock because, although they were slightly more expensive, we felt the software was much more user friendly. In addition, we were confident that we would get a more thorough service from this provider and would remain an important customer with them and, I am glad to say, we have been proven right.”


Next on DTW’s agenda:
• Laptops for their field sales team to give them direct access to the live Intact system wherever they are
• A customer loyalty points scheme which comes on line in a few weeks
• A web presence to enable their customers to place orders via a fully integrated Blue Rock web shop. This will also allow trade customers to self administer their accounts via the internet


The final word goes to Andy;


“We plan to continue our organic growth but at no point will the quality of our service be sacrificed in its pursuit. I am confident that Intact and Blue Rock will support this which is why I requested that they write this article as so many independent organisations, like DTW, could also benefit”.

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Software solutions provider & distributor Blue Rock Systems Ltd has purchased the Nottingham based IT software company Sense Computers Systems from the Sense Group for c£670,000.

The Southampton based Blue Rock sees the addition of Sense as a logical expansion that increases its geographic spread and gives it access to experienced staff, a wide customer base and new software.

Blue Rock is purchasing Sense Computer Systems from the Sense Group, who will now concentrate on its Sense Enterprise Solutions Division.

The managing director of Blue Rock, George Troullis, said: ‘This is an excellent opportunity for Blue Rock to expand into the Midlands with an existing, happy client base with a first class team of engineers and support staff.

‘Having a base in the Midlands is a key requirement of our expansion road map and Sense’s excellent offices really fit the bill. I know Sense’s high quality engineers will enjoy being stimulated by working with the Blue Rock team.

‘This is a big expansion for Blue Rock and we will now concentrate all our efforts to ensure a seamless transfer and guarantee the excellent customer service that Sense’s customers have enjoyed continues and even improves! In addition Blue Rock will establish a new business sales team in Nottingham which will increase our turnover to approximately £ 4 million within 12 months.’

Michael Blatherwick, the Managing Director of the Sense Group said: ‘We took the strategic decision to focus on our Enterprise Solutions business- but wanted to make sure we found the right owner  for our Computer Systems division and one who would maintain the high levels of customer support and drive the business forward.’

‘All of our customers purchased from us because they trusted us to offer excellent ongoing support and we are confident that Blue Rock will deliver that – their track record with their own customers support my confidence in the company.’

Enquiries:

Blue Rock
Glen Jewell/George Troullis    +44(0)23 8083 9800

Johnquinnconsult
John Quinn    +44(0)7736 149410

Sales-i’s Reseller Channel Gets Underway with the Appointment of Blue Rock Systems

- Blue Rock adds sales-i to its product portfolio to plug the gap for portable sales intelligence and CRM solutions –

Sales-i, (www.sales-i.com) the sales intelligence service for front line sales people today announced that it has signed a reseller agreement with IT Solutions provider, Blue Rock Systems. Blue Rock is an established, highly regarded IT Solutions Company with a reputation for delivering and implementing sales intelligence, accounting, CRM and wholesale distribution systems to companies across the UK and Ireland. Blue Rock will now extend its offerings to include sales-i’s on-demand sales intelligence and CRM system.
“sales-i is low cost, ready to use and easy to deliver and most importantly it is exactly what our customers are looking for in a climate where clever sales and customer know-how can really make a difference to the bottom line,” commented Glen Jewell, sales director at Blue Rock. “sales-i fills a gap in our product portfolio by offering our clients a portable, on-demand sales intelligence and CRM solution with a very low cost of ownership.”

Blue Rock is a rapidly expanding software house based on the south coast of England. Its primary business activity is in the supply and support of financial, logistic, warehouse and service software applications for small and medium sized organisations throughout the UK. The company offers a choice of solutions including Microsoft Dynamics™, Intact Software and QlikView™ and works closely with its clients to thoroughly understand their requirements and to deliver a solution that meets with their current and future expectations.
sales-i is a very natural and complementary extension to Blue Rock’s solutions and expertise. Both companies target their products at small to medium distribution organisations with large product lists and hundreds of customers managing office and field based sales forces. sales-i is an easy to use, on-demand sales intelligence and CRM system that empowers these sales organisations and sales teams by providing them with up to the minute sales and gap analysis alerting them to upselling and cross selling opportunities. sales-i also offers a portable CRM solution integrating sales call outcomes and customer contact management thereby giving increased sales and customer buying visibility. sales-i works on any browser including mobile devices.

The Software as a Service (SaaS) model further increases sales-i’s appeal as Glen explains, “ Our customers can be up and running with sales-i in such a short time because there is no need for installation or infrastructure investment. The service is hosted and delivered by the sales-i team and once our customer data is uploaded they are good to go; immediately receiving sales alerts and customer buying information. This coupled with a low monthly fee really does make it an easy decision and we are already enjoying significant interest from our customers.”
Kevin McGirl is co-founder of sales-i and very upbeat about the new partnership. “The Blue Rock team understands the market for sales-i. They have an established footprint with the kinds of organisations that sales-i targets and they have strong expertise in sales technologies, so there is a natural synergy between our companies. We are delighted to welcome them as our first reseller and we look forward to working closely with them to boost their sales intelligence solutions sales.”

Sales-i is a real-time sales intelligence service for front-line sales people. Through sales-i, sales professionals are equipped with real-time customer buying behavior alerts which are delivered by email and text messaging, empowering them to make better informed, personalized and faster decisions which maximize repeat sales and reduce customer slippage.
Sales-i is a true Software-as-a-Service solution charged on a per-user, per-month, basis.
Sales and marketing organizations rely on sales-i to maximize their sales intelligence. This delivers protected customer share, better margins, visible cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and increased customer buying behaviour know-how resulting in more intelligent, profitable selling.

“We are aware that prospective customers and existing customers are always trying to differentiate software providers – and sometimes it can really be difficult. At Blue Rock, although we are successful and growing by some 30-40% year on year, Microsoft Gold Accredited but will remain a people to people business – which we feel sets us apart from the many”.

We have seen a massive increase in the levels of interest for our web products and web portal products. Virtually the whole of the customer base has made enquiries or has ordered either a business to business e-commerce portal or an accounts portal which enables their end users to manage their accounts, order books, service calls, etc. At Blue Rock we feel that the economy has meant that our customers are looking at every angle to drive efficiency into their businesses and the tools and the developing skill set at Blue Rock enables us to provide this for them.

20 years ago, to the month, junior salesman Glen Jewell started working for George Troullis who had just taken the reins at a Southampton based business Software Company. The company, Gresham Business Computers, was in a dreadful state but with a combination of youthful ambition and hard work the business prospered.


Two decades on and the duo are managing the affairs of Blue Rock Systems, a relatively young but rapidly growing software house offering software solutions to the Building Supply Chain – from buying groups, through to manufacturers, merchants and retailers.


“I’ll always remember the first order we took in the merchants sector which was a pivotal point in our history”, recalls George. “It was for a 5 branch merchant based in Dorset and we’d competed against the leading competitors of the time, virtually all of whom have now ceased to exist. I’d like to think that the customer bought from us because of our professionalism, keen pricing and because we are likeable chaps but I have a nagging doubt that on the day we visited to negotiate and collect the order, the fact that Glen hobbled in with a leg injury with me bent double with back problems meant that the customer placed the order out of sympathy!”.


Interesting enough, some of the branch managers from that original installation have bought systems from Blue Rock and are now running successful enterprises in their own right.
“In 20 years we have worked through recession, Millennium upgrades, the birth and explosion of the Internet and Email and more recently E-Commerce and solutions for remote workers and salesmen. Innovative software and solutions has always been the key and we still firmly believe we have the edge”, continues George.


“Apart from a 2 year sabbatical, when Glen became involved with  Microsoft products , which now form a cornerstone of our business we have worked together in this field and guesstimate that over the time we have supplied some 470 mid range systems to distributors, merchants and more recently building product manufacturers. There was some inevitable pain along the way but the vast bulk of the installations were exceptionally successful and the team still maintain customers from the mid 80’s.”
“We’ll we’ve always gained a “buzz” from watching our customers prosper, in part, because of the work we do so we thought we take a few of these (including one of the original branch managers from the inaugural installation) for a few beers and some food at a forthcoming football match – I just hope that Glens leg and my back holds out!”.

Question: How do you crack down on costs, improve efficiency, increase sales and improve your customers’ experience, without spending a fortune in these tough times?

Answer: Well, you could do worse than follow the example set by the UK’s leading bathroom distributor and long-time Blue Rock client, Ideal Bathrooms.
Ideal have worked with the staff of Blue Rock for more than 10 years, and have a 64 user computer system that operates from  four different sites strategically located across  the length of the UK.
With £5 million of bathroom products in stock, a fleet of 41 delivery vehicles and a next day, nation- delivery service to 99% of its customers, Ideal depend upon brilliant logistics and relies on the services of  Blue Rock  to keep it running.
When French building conglomerate Saint-Gobain, one of world’s top one hundred industrial corporations, took over Ideal it listened to the directors request to keep its tried and tested relationship with Blue Rock and not move to the corporate solution .
It is a fully integrated business system that handles the complete process, from stock checking at the initial enquiry right through to raising delivery notes, invoices and statements. It updates stock levels, warns the buyer when time to reorder, generates management information and runs its own full accounts package.

That wasn’t enough for Ideal’s operations director, Kim Kirby-Earnshaw. Last year she added the document management system (DMC) to the software and reckons the investment has all but paid for itself already.
Kim said: ‘Blue Rock installed the DMC in October and it went without a hitch. Now we send all our sales invoices and statements to our customers by email or fax, whichever method they prefer.
‘We have a large customer base so that alone has saved us £1,800 a month in manpower and postage, with taking into account the other benefits.
‘And we know the paperwork has been successfully delivered, so we don’t hear the “We’ve never received your invoice” story when we are chasing for payment!
‘Some customers ask for a fax confirmation once they have placed an order with us. We take some 30% of orders by fax; about 5% by email and the rest are handled by the 23 staff who work in our central phone sales office in Milton Keynes.
‘Whichever way the order comes in our system generates a mirror image of the order instantly which is sent within seconds to our customer, showing the full information, including any out of stock items.
‘We use the same system to place our purchase orders with our suppliers.’

The document management system has saved Ideal money, improved efficiency and given more information more quickly to its customers and manufacturers.
But Kim is still not satisfied and now plans to add automatic scanning of the 1,000 + delivery notes Ideal’s delivery drivers return to the depots every day.
Kim said: ‘By adding a barcode to the delivery note the DMC will be able to scan the document and automatically send each customer electronic proof of every delivery – no punching of delivery note numbers or manual filing required, so less errors and less staff required to do, what is, a pretty boring job.

Last year was a particularly busy one for Ideal with the company buying the Glasgow based bathroom distributor, In-Line Sales and Distribution. That business will soon complete the full integration of its computer systems to Blue Rock.
The sales side of Ideal has also benefited from add-ons to the Blue Rock software. The company added Sales Console to its system and it has proved a major success.
Kim said: ‘Our sales director, Rob St. Barbe, is always singing Sales Console’s praises! He says it tells him what individual clients are doing at any one time.’

Sales Console provides the ability to track, analyze, and understand all aspects of a business, and can easily and quickly be manipulated to fit an individual company’s actual requirements.
It enables management to see what is being sold to which customer, when, where and by whom, critical in identifying profitable customers, any low performing sales reps, and any slow moving products.
Drifting customers, missed cross sell opportunities, “cherry picking” accounts or salesman are immediately identified and alerts are sent out, allowing any potential problems to be acted upon before they become major issues.

We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting a open day on March 19th to present the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, CRM and other facilities. This is customer focused day (with a few potential clients attending). Invites will be sent out shortly via post and email but you may care to download the attached PDF and beat the rush!

Customer Open Day Invite 

Tile West (Trading as Tile Ambitions) was set up in 2001 by Marian Barnard & Chris Warmington and originally operated as a distributor of tiles and ceramics to Builders and Developers across Cornwall and Devon.

It rapidly became apparent their range of unique stone-wear offered an opportunity to sell direct to the public also and in the space of 7 years they have opened an additional 3 sites – stretching the length and breadth of Cornwall and Devon .

Like many multi branch operations the management team at Tile West started to feel the strain in maintaining a tight control in the day to day running of the branches. In addition expansion has led to increases in administration and stock levels.

Typically this wouldn’t be an issue but at a time when cost prices are increasing (mainly due to currency fluctuations) and turnover being affected by a slowdown in the building marketplace then the obvious business target is to gain a tighter reign of your operating costs.

A major step in achieving this was to install a fully integrated business software system that linked all the sites and provided the Directors of the business will real time trading information across all four branches.

In the spring of 2008 Tile West engaged with the team at Blue Rock to assess their Intact Software System for Tile Stockists and Distributors. In a very short space of time it became apparent that the software and the company was a great fit for Tile West’s operation but a decision to purchase the system was delayed until the Autumn due other business demands…but even then the solution wasn’t straight forward.

The problem is that Tile West’s head office is in a very quiet area in the heartland of Cornwall and currently Internet providers do not provide affordable, reliable and fast Internet connectivity for rural areas. This meant that Head Office would not be able to offer a reliable software service for the branches.

Fortunately Blue Rock also supply Intact under a Hosting model which means that Tile West’s software and server can be housed at our offices and all of the Tile West branches link to us via our secure, dedicated line to the Internet with a 99.9% uptime from British Telecom.

The benefits?  Well obviously it enables us to provide a solution but also improves speed of access and reliability. In addition Tile West do not have to concern themselves with the day to day management of their server nor their daily backups and Blue Rock have instant access to their server should it require updating or maintenance.

Commenting on the order, Simon Barber, Regional Sales Manager added “We feel that this hosting model is becoming a far more attractive option for companies, such as Tile West with smaller multi branch locations. We appreciate that not all potential customers will have limited communications options but the benefits of hosting in terms of a managed service with the cost spread over 5 years will appeal to a boarder audience.”

Rifina - Trade Counter

Richard Bartlam, the forward looking electrical wholesaler’s managing director explains why Rifina trusted Blue Rock & Intact software to ‘run the business’

Rifina is an independent Gloucestershire-based Electrical Wholesaler and has just celebrated 30 years in business.  Being very much a private and somewhat conservative company, we have always looked hard at any purchase to ensure that it will give us the best possible return on our investment.

Our company motto is “We keep our promises” which seems a simple enough claim but can often be hard to keep, especially when manufacturers let us down. Within Rifina, much is dependent upon a chain of people working together.  We rely on members of staff working across all three branches – Tewkesbury, Cheltenham and Cirencester – and work as one company.  Thus we do not set one branch against another, but see ourselves instead as one warehouse with three doors.

This company ethos might seem strange to others but it has enabled us to centralise our sales office, streamline our deliveries, keep better stocks and, most importantly, still give individual attention to each and every customer.  This personal service aspect of our business is why I still publish on the back of all company literature my private telephone number, so that any customer can contact me directly if company standards fall.

After 20 or so years with our present software company, it was felt that we needed a much more integrated software solution that included the CRM that was currently lacking.  Indeed, we are at present running two sets of customer data, one for stock and sales, etc., and one for customer-related day-to-day information and reps’ reports.  We needed a package that combined both.

Other issues identified as necessary in a new system were:

·         Automatic maintenance of stock levels throughout the company.

·         Ability to drill down and examine in detail all company data.

·         The ability to import and export data into MS Excel or Word so that changes could be made quickly and easily.

·         A system where managers could be alerted when procedures and guidelines were not being followed, to prevent mistakes being made.

·         A system to keep Proof of Delivery (POD) paperwork scanned and attached to the relevant documents.

·         A more efficient purchasing process, allowing suppliers with advantageous prices to be recommended by the computer.

Having looked at many other systems on the market, we found Intact almost by chance.  Even at the initial meeting it became clear that this was a potential frontrunner.  However, because of the current lack of Electrical Distributors in the UK using the system, we had to go and look at an Irish Electrical Distributor – an eye-opening, but not unpleasant, experience – to see it working in our industrial sector.

We also visited other Blue Rock customers in the UK, in the Builders Merchants’ sector, who were using the software; it’s always interesting to see other markets in action.

What we have been most impressed with is the way Blue Rock listened to our specific requirements.  Even suggestions made during the initial sessions were taken away and thought about and, if felt necessary to improve the software, were quickly implemented so that at our next meeting they would come back and say, “Done that!”.  All this, even before we had agreed to come on board…

At the end of the day, our list of modifications required to the product was reduced down to one or two minor issues.  Successful implementation of a new system requires a lot of faith in the company behind the software and requires a real partnership.  I feel confident that the partnership between Rifina and Blue Rock will stand the test of time.

Richard Bartlam
Managing Director, Rifina (www.rifina.com)

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Its Sunday night and 5 lads from Blue Rock are recovering from their 10 mile run around a very wet Portsmouth today after completing the Great South Run.

Noel Creighton, Simon Barber, Simon Coombes, Glen Jewell and Andy price all took part in the race to raise money for their chosen charities. Thanks to the suppliers, customers, friends and families who helped to raise around £1500 for the Piam Brown ward (Children’s Cancer Ward at Southampton) and other organisations – we really appreciate the donations and we know that the money will go to the best of causes.

A post run drink has brought us to the decision to ask all the donors what they would like to see us doing next year to raise some money. So your realistic suggestions are more than welcome – but remember we will be asking you to sponsor us- so the greater the task – the more money we will ask for .

And the results? Well we all completed the run in times ranging from 1 hour 28 mins to 1 hour 55 mins but modesty prevents us from revealing who came first (but it was one of the oldest!)

Some photos for those that are interested…..