Empowering everyone with real time data to achieve customer service excellence

Part of Descours & Cabaud, leading UK industrial components distributor Hayley Group, empowers its teams and delivers exceptional customer service thanks to intuitive, insightful data.

At the heart of the UK's industrial sector, Hayley Group has been an industry leader since 1976. With over 50 branches and a team of more than 1,000 people, they've embraced change and innovation to stay at the forefront.

Since 2008, Hayley Group has partnered with Phocas Software to turn complex data into actionable insights. Under the guidance of IT Director Mark Law, they've unlocked the potential of their data and enhanced decision-making throughout the entire organization.

Reporting bottlenecks across the business

Before Phocas, sifting through Hayley Group's vast data from over five sources within their Infor SX.e ERP system was daunting. Traditional reporting was slow and rigid, making it near impossible to respond to non-standard report requests in a timely manner.

Mark says that if a branch wanted a bespoke report, “we had to pay somebody external to create the report in the ERP and wait for it to come or it meant somebody in my team had to download the information and create the report, send it to the branch who could send it to the customer.”

Inevitably, this was having a significant impact on IT resources. Mark explains how members of his team were spending 2, sometimes 3 days a month generating reports for branches and customers; an outdated process he recognized wasn’t good for his team, or end users.

Unlocking real-time insights with data analytics

Mark believes the integration of Phocas with its Infor SX.e provides actionable insights across Hayley Group's complex data sets. It brings together its ERP data with other system data into an easy to use, cloud-based tool, giving everyone instant access to vital business metrics and trends – including its customers.

"The real big thing with Phocas is the speed at which we get information... It allows us to make decisions quickly," says Mark.

Purchasing Director, Will Fletcher agrees. He uses Phocas daily and can now quickly and easily get the information he needs to track spending with suppliers without having to rely on IT. It allows him to dive deep into sales and purchasing trends, spot growth areas, and find opportunities to shift non-core spending to preferred suppliers.

“We could get that information out of our ERP system, but it would take a lot longer. And, undoubtedly, it would mean running lots of separate reports that would, of course, take time to do and be quite cumbersome. So, what Phocas gives us is all that information a lot more quickly, and a lot more easily,” Will says.

A whole business solution

Hayley Group started their Phocas journey with Phocas Analytics, then later added the Rebates and CRM modules. These products work seamlessly together as a platform so everyone can understand and improve the business at any level – from the group-level company directors, to branch managers, and everyone in between. Here’s how:

1. Data-driven branch management

With customizable dashboards, interactive visualizations and transaction-level insights, Phocas Analytics provides branch managers with a comprehensive overview of their branch. Bury St Edmunds Branch Manager, Jerry Keeble, says he would simply be lost without Phocas to help him run his business and says it makes him feel like he is in control.

For example, Jerry and his team put the data in Phocas Analytics to work and have since offset the impact of down traders from 20% of branch turnover to 10%.

“We can ask why they're not dealing with us and look and see if someone else [another supplier] has gone in selling a product cheaper than us or there's been a service issue, you can go in and you can address it there and then.” Jerry says.

2. Boosting purchasing power

Purchasing Director Will explains how Phocas supports its sourcing strategy; allowing Hayley Group to be more informed during negotiations and strengthening supplier relationships.

“Phocas Analytics helps us with our strategy because it can identify who our core suppliers are and where we have some opportunities within that spend. It also allows us to compare how we're performing with different suppliers and highlight some potential opportunities.” Will says.

IT Director, Mark explains that Phocas also supports with inventory management day-to-day. "Phocas enables us to tell our suppliers what stock is and isn't moving... It ensures timely adjustments to orders and fosters a more responsive supply chain ecosystem.".

3. Streamlining financial accuracy

Hayley Group faced significant challenges managing customer rebates due to manual, spreadsheet-based processes that caused inaccuracies, delays, and inefficiencies; hindering the company's ability to provide timely and accurate information to customers.

Automating the rebate management process with Phocas Rebates has given the team real-time visibility into rebate accruals and eligibility criteria.

Mark emphasizes, "Phocas Rebates gives us instant access to rebate information, simplifying calculations and enhancing transparency."

It enables Hayley Group to streamline its rebate management, improve financial accuracy, and share more timely insights with customers.

4. Seamless customer engagement

Without a unified CRM platform, sales representatives at Hayley Group struggled to prioritize customer visits and lacked visibility into customer interactions, resulting in inefficiencies and missed opportunities.

Thanks to Phocas CRM, sales representatives now manage customer relationships and optimize sales efforts with ease. As Mark highlights, "Phocas CRM helps our sales teams communicate effectively and plan their visits efficiently."

Branch Manager Jerry adds, "By looking at our top accounts or our regular trading accounts, I can direct the guys to go out and do the calls based on those products.”

Intuitive, self-serve system

With its predefined calculations, dashboarding capabilities, and user-friendly self-service interface, Phocas saves data management and reporting time for both the IT team and end-users, enabling them to focus on more business-critical tasks.

"Once we've set it up and we've got the databases created a lot of it is self-service... People can be up and running very quickly." explains Mark.

This is helping to reduce time to value across the business. For example, Data Analyst Eden Beales explained that “without a lot of training, I managed to pick it up, and now it's a vital part of my day-to-day."

Mark adds, "Users report high satisfaction with Phocas due to its ease of use and effectiveness in delivering actionable insights."

Data integration, security, and innovation as standard

From a technical perspective, Mark feels Phocas is an IT Director’s dream. With excellent responsiveness, even outside of traditional working hours, Mark is always confident of a quick response from the Phocas team whenever he needs support.

Phocas also enables granular access control, ensuring users only see the information relevant to their roles and responsibilities, and provides a detailed audit trail of user activity, offering Mark the reassurance needed for data security and compliance.

"We can lock people down to see the information that they need to see without having to create separate reports... From a support security point of view, that's really good." says Mark.

With a focus on innovation, Phocas enables Hayley Group to stay ahead of the curve and leverage the latest tools and functionalities to drive business growth and improvement.

“Phocas has changed our business for the better. Phocas has got a lot of experience working with Infor ERPs. So, it's a really fast set-up generally once you make the selection to use the product.” explains Mark.

A bright future built on a growing partnership

Phocas has emerged as a transformative force within Hayley Group Limited, addressing key challenges and empowering employees at all levels to make informed decisions and deliver exceptional customer service. From streamlining sales analytics and optimizing customer engagement to automating rebate management processes, Phocas has become an indispensable tool to drive business success.

Mark says, “We've noticed a definite connection between people who are using Phocas and how well they're managing their business.” So much so, that Hayley Group’s internal ‘Branch of the Year’ award now includes the use of Phocas as a key ingredient for success in calculating the results for the coveted award.

"Phocas empowers our teams to harness the power of data and deliver exceptional customer experiences." Mark concludes.