Half of Fire Fighting Pacific’s (FFP) business involves fixed installations such as sprinkler systems and fire alarms, while the rest involves servicing and maintaining these systems post-installation.

The business was having difficulty with a financial system that could only talk to the job-costing system via a fragile interface. This meant system upgrades often wreaked havoc, causing the interface to fall over. This then resulted in constant downtime, while, at the same time, vendor support was described by FFP’s corporate services manager, Charlie Loughnan, as only “moderately reliable”.

An additional problem was that customer information was being maintained in several different locations, which exacerbated the administrative challenge of maintaining consistent data. FFP badly needed a new system. And topping its new system wish-list was a central CRM hub to manage the company’s 2,800 customer sites. Loughnan envisaged this being fully integrated with a pin-point accurate job-costing system that would help improve profitability and competitiveness.

To upgrade FFP’s systems, the company looked at a number of systems, finally narrowing the choice down to two.

Greentree’s system was evaluated alongside another system, says FFP’s accounting analyst, Michelle Foster. “But integration depends on your definition, and at the time of the demonstration the other system’s CRM capability wasn’t proven, and integration from the nominal ledgers to the general ledger was not real-time. Greentree is a ‘live’, proven and truly integrated system.”

Job-costing ‘Lifeblood’
The tender process for multi-million dollar installations is highly competitive and is one that FFP is routinely involved with.  Loughnan says that without a formidable job-costing capability the company simply can’t be as accurate as it needs to be.

“It’s absolutely imperative that we know exactly what level of profit we can make on a job from the outset. We were struggling to ascertain this clearly with our previous system, but Greentree has enabled us to take job-costing to a whole new level.”

“The system allows cross-referencing of expenditure, which enables ultra-high visibility of costs, such as the depreciation of plant and equipment, which can be factored into the hourly rate charged on any given job.” 

When jobs range from a few dollars to millions, it’s imperative that the competitive pricing of jobs enables us to make a profit. We now know exactly how much margin we have and what the impact it has on the bottom line, and that’s absolutely invaluable,” says Loughnan. None of the other systems evaluated could reveal this level of cost detail.

CRM as business hub
Over the years, FFP has installed various systems to support incremental growth, but as time has gone by, these systems have become increasingly irrelevant, says Loughnan.

Trying to maintain burgeoning amounts of customer data in multiple locations had become counter-productive and, at times, “embarrassing”.

This happened when, occasionally, different FFP staff would contact the same customer about the same issue, because they were accessing different sets of information.

The new CRM system now provides the infrastructure needed to properly service FFP’s growing customer base. This information is now entered only once and can then be viewed from anywhere by authorised FFP customer service staff. This has reduced administration costs and improved customer service levels, since staff now have access to consistent customer information.

Consultative approach
FFP’s Foster found Greentree business partner and system implementer Endeavour’s years of experience in new system implementation made it easy to have meaningful – and progressive conversations – with them.

This ensured the software was configured to optimise key business processes. Also, post-implementation support has always been readily available, she says.

“Endeavour has a thorough understanding of how best to integrate business processes into Greentree,” says Foster. 

“Their depth of knowledge of new system implementations makes them well able to engage on a business level and quickly grasp what’s required,” says Foster.

Going with the flow
Loughnan says while it’s essential that back-office systems can efficiently capture business data, it’s quite another task overlaying that data with reporting and analysis tools, to glean business intelligence insights. But, it’s to this end that Foster applies her accounting and systems’ analysis skills, so she can develop custom reports and “tidy up and tighten business processes”, as she puts it.

Foster estimates she has seen a 200-300 per cent improvement in the flow, consistency and quality of business information since Greentree was implemented. For Loughnan, what has stood out is Greentree’s massive capability when it comes to customisation. This means that FFP’s business investment is effectively safeguarded for years to come, he says.

Greentree has enabled a level of task visibility that Fire Fighting Pacific has never had before, he adds. “We’re now certain that every task performed on behalf of our customers contributes to the bottom line.”

“Greentree offers long-term expandability, to accommodate and manage business growth. We envisage developing the system well into the future.”

For more information

Greentree
Graham Hill, Channel Manager
Email: graham.hill@greentree.com
Ph: 09 366 3888
Fax: 09 366 3889
Web: www.greentree.com

updated_9/6/5_ex_h_nl

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