Meakin Building Supplies Limited
Independent Builders Merchant selects ENCORE - eBIS from Anagram Systems to run its business.
Meakin Building Supplies - The Company
Meakin Building Supplies is the largest independent builders merchant in the Thames Valley area and employs some 40 people. Founded 21 years ago the family owned business, from its relatively humble beginnings, now has four branches and serves its customers through its own fleet of nineteen vehicles.
Ivan Meakin, the Managing Director, is proud of the company and the service that they give to their customers, 'we pride ourselves on our competitiveness, quality and speed of service and believe that very few merchants are able to match us on this. Whilst a large proportion of our customers are trade, we get an increasing number of DIY customers who rely on the experience of our staff for good advice, which they get.'
Growth has of course had its challenges a shortage of space being one and keeping control of expanding sales and stock, another. The opening of a recently acquired Guildford branch has helped alleviate the first of these.
A New Software System
'Until recently, we had a computer system in place that we installed about ten years ago. As we added new branches it became very obvious that it was struggling to keep up with the level of transactions we were processing. Gradually more time was being spent on administering the system with a number of jobs, especially on the accounts side, having to be double entered. We decided that in order to be able to control current business levels and handle future grow, we had to replace the old system'. 'We set a number of key requirements for the new system' recalls Ivan. 'These included a fast point of sale, fast search processes and flexible pricing. It also had to be simple to use and give us one integrated system covering sales, purchasing, stock, accounts, contact management, and comprehensive reporting. We looked at a number of systems including the main suppliers to the industry but felt that they were all quite complex and expensive to use. Moving data into word and excel, which we use extensively, was not as easy as it should have been. After site visits and further detailed discussions we selected Encore-eBIS as our system, a true windows based system with full relational data base from Anagram Systems.'
How Its Gone
The software was easily installed on our server with real time operation across our network of branches. Encore has given us the ability to have all our information in one place. And with the benefit of windows against Unix, we can carry out a number of tasks without needing to stop what we were doing. It's a great time saver for customer enquiries and the drill down to detailed information is very quick and very good. We worked with Anagram on some specific custom items we required and these were completed quickly and efficiently.
The level of support we have had has been very good and when needed they have been on hand to answer questions. This is particularly pleasing since the first year's maintenance is free.
Overall, we have been very pleased with Encore-eBIS and it offers a number of features, such as e-business which we can grow into but because they are fully integrated, there is no additional cost. Encore will offer many small to medium sized independents the sort of software they need but never thought they could afford.