Sarsen Stone Group is a family company based in Wiltshire that sources, supplies, manufactures and installs natural stone. It also supplies related ancillary products for cleaning and maintenance. The group is formed of two subsidiaries; Ca’Pietra, who sell through retailers, and Artisans of Devizes, who sell direct.
The company has a strong ethos of integrity and loyalty. Its success is based on ensuring that it can successfully serve a wide range of commercial and domestic customers, whilst still maintaining the traditional values on which the company was founded in 1990.
Multiple systems hindering business decision-making
Sarsen Stone was using multiple systems: accounting software from Access Dimensions, plus CRM solutions from both Salesforce and Goldmine. These disparate systems did not give the company the information it needed to make important business decisions. Getting the correct information for a customer was difficult and accurate reporting through three very different systems was very challenging.
Having identified a need to implement a new ERP system that would also give them the CRM functionality they wanted, Sarsen Stone researched the solutions that fitted their needs. They listed several software systems and thoroughly explored and evaluated each one against the company’s business model. The options were then shortlisted and reviewed more extensively, allowing the project team to narrow it down to one.
Laying a path to the future
That solution was NetSuite. Sarsen Stone felt that NetSuite was the software that could help them to move forward. Its CRM capabilities were a big factor, as was the fact that NetSuite is a true cloud offering.
NetSuite put Sarsen Stone in touch with Balloon One, who demonstrated how the functionality matched the company’s needs and also proved the benefit of NetSuite hosting the solution. One of the major benefits for Sarsen Stone was the automatic upgrades of the software and the peace of mind of knowing that their data would always be backed up and securely stored.
“With NetSuite, we don’t have to worry about taking back-ups ourselves and future upgrades of the system software will happen automatically in the background.” Jason Young, IT Manager
The decision to use Balloon One was a simple one. Sarsen Stone felt that Balloon One understood their pains and took time in the pre-sales approach to cover everything they required to make the decision to move forwards.
Balloon One managed the project to upgrade the three legacy systems to NetSuite and achieved it within three months. The data transfer took longer than expected, due to the amount of data tidying that was required. But Balloon One helped to tidy up the stock and customer files from two different databases. Despite the extra time needed for the data transfer, Sarsen Stone was able to stick to its original agreed implementation date and between them, Balloon and Sarsen Stone made the project happen within the timescales originally set out.
Improved data and business-critical information
Sarsen Stone now has 28 users across all areas of the business running NetSuite for accounting and CRM.
The company users were given extensive training. Whilst it took some time to settle in, most staff now agree that NetSuite is a much better system than what Sarsen Stone was using before.
Since the go-live date, Sarsen Stone has continued to invest in NetSuite as their marketplace has changed. The company is now using the project module in limited capacity as part of a second stage implementation. They wanted their staff to use the solution as they had done historically, without putting too much pressure on adding more processes. As they become used to the changes, the additional processes are gradually being added. As a result, Sarsen Stone is finding that they are saving a lot of resource and time.
The implementation has met Sarsen Stone’s original objectives too. The company is growing in the UK and now has better access to the data to make decisions.
“NetSuite has enabled us to easily produce more accurate reports on our business, which in turn makes decision-making for business growth and strategy much more informed and meaningful.” Jason Young, IT Manager
Improved efficiency has also come as Sarsen Stone staff are only entering their data into one system, not three. The company is very pleased with the flexibility of NetSuite and the ability to customise it to suit its needs and processes.
Sarsen Stone is also aware that aware that NetSuite can do far more than they are currently using it for. And, while not wanting to bite off more than we they can chew at once, they hope to gradually use it more and more to help them meet their business goals.
If you would like to learn more about the number one cloud ERP that has helped Sarsen Stone, please call us for a free demonstration on 020 8819 9071 or contact us using the website form.
Can’t decide between NetSuite and SAP?
As Balloon One is the only UK partner of both these leading systems, we are able to offer unbiased advice on which solution is best for your specific business needs. Download the comprehensive ‘SAP Business One vs NetSuite’ comparison to explore the capabilities of both ERP systems.