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| CASE STUDIES | May 2007 |
KnowledgeWorker puts the sparkle back into high street jewellers
A FAMILY BUSINESS established almost a century ago, Beaverbrooks jewellers is a familiar sight on many high streets. With more than 60 shops, Beaverbrooks is a growing concern, opening at least two new retail outlets each year. However, increased paperwork and administration were becoming an issue with staff at the branches and head office.
According to Patrick Walker, Head of MIS, retail sales teams prefer to spend time with customers, rather than paperwork and it seemed that much of their time was being taken up with phone calls and admin tasks.
Order processing
As a retail jeweller much of Beaverbrooks’ business is in providing special order items—wedding and engagement rings, necklaces, silverware and watches. While each shop stocks the range of wedding and engagement rings, it is rare that they will all be available from stock to fit all sizes. Most couples will choose the design of the ring together, and then the finger is measured and the ring will be ordered by the branch either from our central warehouse, another local branch or directly from the supplier. The result was that much of the Beaverbrook staff time was being taken up following the progression of the order. A system was needed that would manage this. In addition, management information demands, reading and circulating memos and corporate information all take up time too. There was a mass of email going round and round the organisation and not always reaching the appropriate person.
Information flow
In order to identify the main issues facing staff, both at head office and in the branches, a focus group was set up comprising department managers from head office, regional managers, local branch managers and sales staff. The focus group identified that branch staff wanted better and faster access to information as well as a reduction in their administration workload.
Consequently Walker and his team felt that the company would benefit from using tools that included document management and workflow with the possibility of an intranet element. KnowledgeWorker, a content and business process management system from Datum International was chosen for its ability to reduce administration and provide collaboration between head office and all the nationwide branches.
Central knowledge base
Accessed via a browser, KnowledgeWorker sits on two servers at head office and has allowed Beaverbrooks to create a framework enabling all company documentation and knowledge to be stored in the central repository. Automatic audit trailing provides accountability and the version control feature reduces duplication of work and ensures that the latest version of a document or information set is available.
KnowledgeWorker enhances and replaces internal systems based on email, word processing, spreadsheets and paper-based documents that were used to share information between branches and head office departments. The workflow element provided by the Business Process Management module has been implemented to track day-to-day tasks between the stores and head office. Workflow has removed a burden from staff, who no longer have to use the telephone or fax to find out the status of an order or piece of information. KnowledgeWorker instantly provides the status of every action.
As a result of employing KnowledgeWorker and changing procedures Beaverbrooks has subtly shifted some of the workload from the branches back to head office. The special-orders department has more work to do as all special orders are now currently passed directly to them.
Customer focused
KnowledgeWorker gives Beaverbrooks the ability to support its branch staff more effectively by providing additional central resources and support, reducing local administration and improving communication. Introducing workflow procedures has reduced the need for branch staff to carry out mundane repetitive tasks with each job flowing easily between the relevant departments, removing the need for time-consuming email communication and the risk of it not reaching the appropriate person.
The feedback from branch staff has been extremely positive. The system is now used extensively by staff and the initial training requirements were minimal. To support its introduction Beaverbrooks produced a voice and video presentation for staff to watch and then conducted a phone training session with the designated training co-ordinator in each branch.
Future plans
Plans for 2007 include linking branches into more head office systems to give even more access to central information. Health and Safety information continually needs updating, and with KnowledgeWorker Beaverbrooks can be sure that each branch has access to the latest information.
Recruitment is another time consuming and essential activity requiring a high level of communication between the branch manager and head office. A major project to incorporate HR processes into KnowledgeWorker is underway.
Fifty per cent admin reduction
For staff at Beaverbrooks, KnowledgeWorker has already significantly reduced the administration load at both branches and head office and will help the company to achieve its objective of reducing initial administration by fifty per cent.
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| www.beaverbrooks.co.uk | www.datumconsulting.com |
