Eyre and Elliston

Success Stories

Electrical Wholesalers

Eyre and Elliston

Customer: Eyre and Elliston

What we did: Upgraded K8

Challenge

Eyre and Elliston is a major electrical distributor based in Chesterfield, with 59 branches across the UK and an extensive product range comprising 55,000 items. A Kerridge Commercial Systems customer since 1998, the company’s ‘rev7’ system was showing its age. Lacking a windows-style interface and some key functionality, bespoke modifications had also been made to the software. In 2011, a project, led by Eyre and Elliston’ Commercial Systems Manager, David Monteith, evaluated the options available, including a comparison of K8 alongside competitive solutions. Although other systems were given serious consideration, after balancing factors such as the transferable knowledge in rev7 and data conversion management, K8 was selected.

For Kerridge CS and Eyre and Elliston, this was going be a major, technically complex project involving over 300 users. An extensive gap analysis was carried out and special programing was identified as a pre-requisite to convert very large data files, particularly sales and purchase orders. Prior to the K8 being implemented, the company’s entire IT infrastructure also had to be upgraded and tested to ensure that it delivered the required performance.

User training formed a large part of the K8 project – a key objective was for the implementation to be seamless for both customers and suppliers. A combination of train-the- trainer, regional training centres and a cascade approach from manager through to staff, proved its worth. In the event, minimal post go-live handholding was required and, based on workload assessments, the company reported being around 95% efficient with their new system from day one.

The original plan was to go live earlier, but due to the exacting nature of the project, the company chose to take a prudent approach and ensure everything was fully tested and signed off before giving K8 the green light.