Rob Nicholls, Product & Supply Chain Manager
Marches Architectural Hardware
Marches Architectural Hardware (MAH) is a family-owned business and has been supplying the joinery, carpentry and construction industries for over 20 years, this limited company buy in and sell products from other manufacturers in the UK.
Other sections of their business include From the Anvil, where they manufacture and distribute a range of handmade ironmongery. They also have a showroom in Mid Wales which caters for trade customers, as well as a smaller division of their business which supplies windows and doors.
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After outgrowing their previous software, Sage 50, and due to the growth of their business, Marches Architectural Hardware required a more robust software solution that included support, security and removed their manual processes.
Rob, Product and Supply Chain Manager explained: "We were using a remote desktop solution, it was probably exhausted to the amount that it could have been and the biggest problem we had was that we didn't have any security.
"We got to that stage where we were running backups multiple times a day so if we did have crashes, we wouldn't have to input all the data again. As a business, we were having to close at lunchtime as well as doing it in the evenings."
Marches had experienced a significant jump in orders, which saw the company sourcing new team members to accommodate the increasing volume and manually inputting an expanding volume of orders. Maintaining such fast growth was something the company knew would be a challenge to sustain via its previous software, which it had clearly outgrown, as Rob Nicholls, Product and Supply Chain Manager, explains:
"Managers and supervisors were having to undertake a lot of manual processes, which ultimately does affect the growth of the business. We had an increase of 10% to 20% in terms of headcount, so it was the right time for us to move away from those manual processes."
Every facet of Profit4 software is built around roles and user requirements, with a modern, intuitive user interface built on future-proof technology to manage all core business processes, making it quick and easy to use.
"We looked at Microsoft Dynamics and that would have been a huge jump for us. OGL was a good fit for us in terms of reducing the manual processes, but also having some familiarity with the look and feel of the software."
Following their go-live on Profit4, Marches Architectural Hardware wanted to increase the productivity within their team. The integration with their eCommerce shopping channels has been vital for them as a business in how they operate on a day-to-day basis.
"We currently have the integration for Amazon and eBay, and both of those platforms are fully integrated with Profit4 which is a massive time saver for us. We are also trying to further develop integration with our websites in the future too."
"We're a company that likes to try and keep everything in house. We do pretty much everything within the company except for software, that's something that we don't specialise in. OGL Software had everything within the company.
"We met the sales team originally, which was very strange to begin with just everything via Zoom and Microsoft Teams during Covid, but really easy to get on with. The project management was great, it went really well, and we always felt really well supported by the team.
"Having an open dialogue about future developments is key, it does feel that each release there are quite a lot of our suggestions being put through and developed. It's that personal approach as well, we feel that our challenges are not being ignored, they are being taken on board."
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"The efficiency savings this has provided has directly enabled us to grow to a £multi-million turnover business."
