SG World Case Study

With products ranging from visitor management solutions, to inspection and financial systems, SG World has been developing innovative products for over 40 Years. Operating from purpose built premises in Crewe the company has in excess of 30,000 customers throughout the UK and the rest of Europe, including 80% of the Times Top 1000 Companies.

In 2003, when SG World were searching for a replacement MIS, they chose Prism Europe from a number of possible suppliers after showing they could deliver the best overall business solution in the form of their flagship WIN system. “Prism’s professional approach, both during the investigation process, and subsequent implementation gave me the confidence I needed to move forward with what, for SG World, was a large project,” said System Development Manager, Doug Kinsman. “We worked closely with Prism’s implementation staff, who carried out a comprehensive business audit and business process re-engineering - resulting in more effective ways of working.”

One of the major benefits has been the creation of a recognised workflow as the backbone of a much more efficient administration. “By the nature of our old systems, the business was fragmented, with much duplication of effort and poor communication between departments. Before installing WIN we had a back order delay of 5 working days – that has now disappeared,” said Doug.


Communication

Communication is an important part of the SG World business model. Prism WIN provides complete integration, from Estimating and order entry, through Purchasing and Inventory to WIN’s full accounting suite. Overlaying the whole suite is a diary system, which allows notes to be scheduled against estimates, jobs, customer contacts, internal staff etc. Seeing the benefit of this system Doug Kinsman has extended its use out to the 30-strong nationwide sales force via SG World’s own web based CRM. “Our sales staff can create, edit and view diary notes remotely and have the ability to add new prospects to the system – an invaluable communication tool for all concerned.”

The flexibility of WIN’s user interface has been a revelation for SG World. “By using Prism’s style sheets, wizards and action scripts we were able to create task specific screens relative to each department – reducing input time down to a minimum.” Andrew Harris – System Development team. “We used to have 12 full time order entry staff taking orders manually. We now have 6 customer service people inputting telephone orders directly into Prism, but also contribute to the business in other ways.”

During the 2 years that SG World have been live with Prism WIN their business has made big strides, and has changed both in the product range and the way they interact with their clients. It is a credit to both parties that they have coped with that change.


Challenges

David Dunbavand, General Manager of Prism Europe explains, “Doug presented us with a number of challenges and we were able to offer Prism’s expertise and experience to provide the required solution. We have a published API called Prism WIN Connect (PWC) that opens up the Prism WIN system to allow third party applications to read and write data to/from the database.”

One of the challenges was the need for an in-house e-commerce system for direct ordering of stock items via the web. Prism’s PWC module imports the sales orders direct to the MIS so that picking lists, despatch notes and invoices can be generated automatically, whilst feeding back stock status levels to the e-commerce system.

Doug Kinsman sees the introduction of the PWC module as an important part of the company’s continued introduction of new technology. “To keep ahead of the competition we need to keep on the cutting edge. We want to take full advantage of new developments and so far Prism has ensured we benefit.”

Mr Dunbavand concluded – “Our partnership with SG World has been successful because both parties believe in pushing for increasingly high standards of system performance. We have been able to provide ongoing solutions to a rapidly changing business with both our products and our in-house expertise. I have no doubt new ideas will continue to be developed and we look forward to further exploiting the core MIS system with the SG World team!”