Interview
Sealey is one of the UK's leading tool and equipment manufacturers and employs over 200 people. The company operates from Bury St Edmonds where it has a 106,000 sq. ft. warehouse, despatching orders to dealers in the UK and beyond. PDMS and Sealey have developed a close working relationship over the last few years, working together on several major e-commerce projects. Tim Thompson, Commercial Director at Sealey, tells us more about these projects and how they have benefited the organisation as a whole.
Sealey have recently invested significantly in e-commerce projects. Can you tell us more about these projects and their impact upon your business?
Over the years our company has experienced spells of significant growth. From a standing start in 1978, the business is set to hit £32m this year and the infrastructure that supports the free flow of information, both internally and externally, has long been overdue attention.
The original brief was to publish our catalogue on line as a reference point for both consumers and dealers. From this came the requirement to formalise the storage of product text, pictures, diagrams and instructions. We tried the home grown approach to data storage, writing our own flat file databases, but as key staff left the business, the projects lost their momentum and the remaining structures grew unstable. We needed a solution that would build on our current working practices while adding a solid foundation for future growth.
As a result of the relationship with PDMS, our initial work quickly delivered an on-line website and the work completed here formed the cornerstone of the catalogue management system (CMS) which is now in the final stages of development.
The system now extends well beyond the original brief and now integrates information from the buyers to details from the technical authors. In addition to feeding the website, catalogue and CD production, the system will also provide our own internal sales team with up to date catalogue information over the intranet.
How important is your website, www.sealey.co.uk, to customer and supplier relations?
Since our business sells only to dealers, our website is used as a reference point for end users. In addition to publishing our list prices, we also provide details of our latest promotions - every product search is returned with relevant products currently on promotion at the top of the list.
For users and dealers trying to order spare parts, we publish diagrams and instructions on line - making the selection of the correct parts a far more certain science.
An on line warranty registration scheme also helps our customer's keep track of Sealey products in the workshop and which are in warranty. As the database grows, it is hoped that this part of the site will also provide valuable market intelligence on market pricing and market performance.
New developments currently awaiting release include an interactive service agent locator; helping users with equipment in need of repairing find authorised repair agents. We also will be publishing links to Yellow Pages and Thomson directories to help users locate their nearest Sealey distributor.
In the dealer only domain, there are significant advances. We will be providing pricing downloads for dealers and also details of our bankrupt stock list which changes from day to day.
In short, our website is a valuable resource for providing information to dealers and their customers and for gathering market intelligence in return.
How has the introduction of a corporate intranet benefited your organisation? How do you see it developing in the future?
The intranet has not yet gone fully live. However, our plans for the site include an integrated QC system to fully report product or service exceptions. In recording these in a structured way, and allowing fast distribution to relevant parties, we will be able to improve our customer service levels.
By linking the CMS system to the intranet, we will also be able to provide the telesales teams with accurate parts diagrams and instruction sheets for products where several versions exist.
We also have plans to share valuable workshop intelligence with our technical sales team, encouraging them to ask the right questions and responding with up to date technical information from the workshops and factories.
Can you tell us more about Sealey's latest initiative—the new product catalogue on CD-Rom?
In many ways, the publishing of the CD-ROM is a critical point in our drive forward - both in marketing and IT terms. From the IT aspect, it will mean that we have clean data and can publish it to other electronic sources with confidence. It will also mean that the Logistics, Marketing, Technical Authoring and Parts Departments will have an absolute point of reference on which to build.
From a marketing point of view, the CD-ROM should help us significantly reduce our catalogue distribution costs while actually increasing our market visibility. Our initial CD run will be in the region of 150,000 copies mounted on several key publications. Clean CD data will also increase our ability to position ourselves strategically within our dealer's supply chains making us an altogether more attractive and easier partner to trade with.