How SAP Business One is enabling bigHead Bonding Fasteners Ltd to get even bigger
As a growing company on the verge of major development, bigHead Bonding Fasteners were aware that they had outgrown their business management software. We’ve been really pleased to work with them over the past year to deliver SAP Business One. We’ve been finding out how it’s already revolutionised their systems and allowed them to move forward.
bigHead Bonding Fasteners (bH) manufactures small specialist fasteners for endless applications. Their unique bigHead® composite fixings were invented in 1966 and have been used for a vast range of uses, from constructing Doctor Who’s Daleks in the 1970s to affixing the arms of Shirley Bassey’s waxwork at Madame Tussauds.
bH’s fasteners form a key component within many industries, including marine, automotive, construction, energy and aerospace. bigHead have long standing relationships with many OEM manufacturers including Sunseeker yachts and premium cars from Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Tesla and Lamborghini to name but a few, making these discreet fixings small but mighty.
The need for change
Recent venture capital funding from the US has enabled bH to look forward to rapid growth and a new, 10,000 square foot modern headquarters in Dorset for their expanding team. It was clear that bH’s previous business management software, Sage Line 200, would no longer meet their needs in the face of these new developments. Sage could not offer the automation or visibility that bH required to manage their growing production.
As bigHead’s Operations Manager Craig Chadwick says, “The upgrade of our facility gave us the opportunity to upgrade our software as well.
“We needed better stock control for what we had, we were growing the amount of transactions that we were putting through the system. We had lots of add-ons in Sage, for example, a CRM package that was separate to the accounts package, quotes being done separately on spreadsheets.”
“There wasn’t any stock management, no analysis of what we were doing, and if we wanted to interrogate the system the reporting functions were very limited.”
Inspire
As a SAP Business One user and Codestone client in a previous job, Craig was an advocate of both the management system and the support Codestone could offer. After careful consideration of the products on the market and the partners providing them, bigHead decided on Codestone and SAP Business One.
“We spent several months going through various tasks, working out what software package did what, what did we currently have, what did we want to have, and then finding competitors out there.”
“Because I’d installed SAP B1 before I knew the right solutions, very much a case of, I can combine the CRM, I can combine all the quotations, we have Bill of Materials and Production Orders, so we can utilise better scheduling and we could have much, much better stock control.”
“SAP Business One is sustainable and it’s got a good future road map. It’s very dynamic, it’s very customisable.”
In addition, bH were impressed by Codestone’s tailored approach to their business management solution, which took the unique challenges they faced into account.
“When Codestone came in, they knew about bigHead, they’d clearly done a bit of research, it was more of a personal approach. They did their homework about what we need as a business and were actually looking to support us.
“Rather than just sell us a product, it was very much a case of, “We understand what you need, this is what we can provide, have you also thought about doing things this way?” And they gave us suggestions and ideas of how we could improve our processes, which we’ve taken on board.”
Transform
Codestone have provided a comprehensive management solution to bH since early 2016, consisting of SAP Business One, Taskcentre and SAP B1UP.
The updated system has enabled bH to streamline their working practices, gain deeper business insight and has provided a robust yet flexible infrastructure to support current and future growth.
“So far, we’ve improved our processes, we’ve managed to cut out certain processes by automating them with scheduled tasks or using the likes of Taskcentre in the background.”
“We’ve now got better knowledge of everything that’s happening because we’ve got one place to look, rather than having three different databases to look into. We have everything set up so that at the click of a button, there are reports available.”
“Now we can go straight to a business partner, we can see the activities, we can see the history, we can see the future.”
Achieve
bH are benefitting from full business management support from Codestone as the company continues to develop.
“The support from Codestone has been superb, we pretty much transferred over seamlessly. And ongoing support, I haven’t had an issue,” says Craig.
“I’ve already recommended, or referred, Codestone and SAP Business One to other businesses. I’m a big advocate of SAP Business One and I’ll always recommend Codestone because there’s a good history there, I believe in the company, I even tried to get a job there once! That’s how much I believe in Codestone as a business!”
Want to discover more?
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