Predictable costs and group-wide vision come to Gooch and Housego

Says group financial controller, Anthony Hawken: “Hosted ERP makes perfect sense for an organisation with a wide geographical spread, like ours. People can access the system anywhere, not just on site, but from home or other offices. And it means we have the latest infrastructure, without the investment – which is arguably the biggest benefit of all.” He says that a surge in business and the fast-changing nature of the organisation had put pressure on its previous systems and processes. “The businesses we acquired were essentially standalone organisations, and to maintain a clear picture of operations, we decided to standardise on our financial and manufacturing systems.” His team chose K3’s Syspro ERP solution, partly because it had already been successfully implemented at three sites, but the global nature of the business meant a traditional ERP roll-out would not solve all the issues. Some locations had little or no IT personnel, he explains, so when K3 introduced hosting firm DigiMIS, Gooch and Housego went for this solution. Five sites are now live on the hosted solution, with the remaining two locations due to be up and running within the next six months. “With the sites that have gone live, it is a just a case of business as usual. There have been no major problems at all and, as far as security and support are concerned, the DigiMIS solution has exceeded my expectations,” says Hawken. “As group financial controller, I now have visibility of all site business activities and perhaps more importantly, we can view sales and group-wide development projects on a global basis.”