Video transcript: Dimensions goes business wide

Bob Barnard: I'm Bob Barnard, the director of DBD Distribution. In order to run your business profitably you really need to have accurate and reliable information. The Access product enables us, via reporting, to get just that - all the information, the key criteria that we need.

You'll remember the Buncefield Oil Terminal fire, well our building here in Hemel Hamstead is just 100 yards from the terminal. So, when it went up, it really caused the business some difficulty. We couldn't gain access to this building for at least a week to see how much damage was done. But, because our servers and our Access software continued during that time, we were able to connect remotely and dispite the damage and devastation that occurred here we were able to keep trading through that very difficult period.

Samuel Firth-Bernard: I'm Samuel Firth-Bernard, Group Sales Director of DBD. DBD over the last 22 years has progressively grown into the largest contract appliance distributor to England and Wales, now servicing some 1 in 5 new home in the UK contract market.

Elaine Bangs, Credit Control Supervisor: One example of our superb state of the art systems is the GoldMine customer relationship management system. We introduced this about 2 years ago with the support of Access, and it has transformed the interaction we have with our customers. One, it's reduced our conversion rates, because we better understand the quotation process and we're far more efficient in terms of chasing up quotations and ensuring we're at the table. The second benefit it's given us, is it's given us the full view of the process in terms of interactions with the customer. So it manages our quotations, it manages the customers and it gives the account managers and the sales team all of the information needed. And the third aspect is that it's given us an ability to understand our competitor better too, because we've been able to pull all the aspects of a quotation we've done and these three aspects have come together to ensure we continue to secure additional business, for the business going forward.

Any conversations, any communications that we have with the customer, are all logged on the Access system, which is very beneficial to pick up an account number. It's enabled us to reduce our debtor days by about 12% year on year, which obviously is very good for cash flow because we're constantly reducing the age debt.

Michael O'Donnell, Operations Manager: Because we can see the whole week's work at a glance on one screen, and our customer's expectations are forever changing, can be scheduled in for the following day, 12 o'clock the day before that could change. It's very easy to see at a glance where a) if we can fit that in, and to actually operate or action that change is just a click of the mouse.

Dimensions goes business-wide

FD Bob Barnard and team discuss how a cross-operational view of business activity has helped DBD Distribution cement its status as the largest contract appliance distributor in England and Wales.
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