Brunswick Business Services (BBS) is the trading arm of Brunswick Industries, an Australian disability enterprise. Employing 58 supported workers who have a varying range of disabilities; they are around 40% government funded. The core work of BBS is providing component assembly and a variety of other services. With a spray cleanser, for example, the customer would provide the bottles, labels and product. BBS would: label it, liquid fill it, cap it, box it, palletise it and get it ready for distribution. We recently had a chat with Jason Beamish, the CEO, who has been with Brunswick Industries for nearly five years.
The Problem
BBS didn’t have an existing stock control system when Jason started as CEO five years ago, so he introduced a solution. Though it did improve the existing processes, it still wasn’t perfect. “Some staff were spending all of their time in stock control and we couldn’t get the reports that we needed. The reports we did get were often incorrect, so the advice we were giving to our customers wasn’t always right.”
BBS needed something that would provide accurate, real-time information so that they could confidently communicate with their customers and provide them with better service. BBS are looking to expand their business, so there’s an even greater need for ensuring that systems and processes are working smoothly.
The Solution
A BBS board member, who happens to be an accountant, recommended that Jason investigate using Xero and introduced him to Andrew Collins from Cloud Ease. Andrew worked closely with BBS to get both Xero and Unleashed up and running. “I was really happy with Xero as the accountancy system, so when Andrew recommended Unleashed it seemed the logical choice.” As well as Jason, the decision-making process included Nicole Thornton, Operations Support Officer. Nicole handles the orders in the system, builds the assemblies and creates the sales invoices – she’s become the internal Unleashed expert.
Strengths of Unleashed for BBS include its user-friendliness once the assemblies were created and the accuracy of the reports. Jason says they’ve had “zero issues in terms of misreporting, which is fantastic! I’ve now got four staff here that use it on a regular basis and I’m comfortable with that.”
Implementation process
“We kept our existing solution live for a month, running them side by side. That gave Nicole and Andrew the time they needed to make sure that our accounts were married up and that everything was running correctly. Prior to that, there was a four-week lead in for a whole lot of assemblies to be put in. We make the same sort of products for the same companies, and we were able to create some of those assemblies and get that in the system prior to launching.”
The Result
Since moving to Unleashed, as well as improved reporting, BBS have experienced a number of benefits. “We find it quite easy to use, and it works well,” Jason says. “The incumbent solution took up an enormous amount of server space, so moving to cloud solutions has been really beneficial.” Jason now only needs to see Andrew every couple of months to touch base on accounting matters. Previously, Andrew would have to be on site every week in order to access the server-based system.
“The fact I can go home, or wherever, be on holiday, and log straight in to Unleashed and have a look at the situation as far as how we’re trading. It makes a massive difference,” Jason enthuses. He has alson found the development progress positive “I’m comfortable with the system and I know sure as we evolve the system has the capability to evolve with us. I’m pleased that our company is running with it and I’m sure that we’ll do good things going forward, so all good.”
