SouthernsBroadstock
Our expertise helped a furniture, fixtures and equipment supplier capture the value of their data to drive their business forward.
SouthernsBroadstock is a furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) manufacturer and supplier, working in the education, corporate, health and public sectors. Since 2015, the company has grown substantially through the acquisition of other businesses. However, as each had its own information management systems, the challenge was to find a way to integrate them.
To find a solution to these challenges, the company was matched through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Professor Chee Wong, a specialist in supply chain and business integration from Leeds University Business School.
The project is a brilliant example of how companies can save money and time and open up new opportunities through better integration and intelligent use of their supply chain data.
The approach
Michael Park and Professor Wong also created a bespoke product lifecycle model that integrated data from SouthernsBroadstocks supply chain with the companys product expertise. This gave the company the ability, for the first time, to accurately forecast the cost of maintaining FF&E within a single building, or across an entire estate, over a set time period.
The impact
The KTP has been transformational, opening our eyes to the value of data and business intelligence and helping to drive our business forward.
The product lifecycle model has enabled SouthernsBroadstock to tender for and win long-term serviced contracts for the first time, backed up by the certainty of accurate costing and forecasting.
This partnership received financial support from the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) programme. KTP aims to help businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK knowledge base. This successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership project, funded by UK Research and Innovation through Innovate UK, is part of the governments Industrial Strategy.
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