Back
Rural Enterprise Group Applies FuseMetrix to Manage Diverse Family Businesses
G & A Leisure is a multi-dimensional family business that has grown and diversified from its agricultural roots. With sites throughout the UK, and multiple but distinctly different operations at each location, senior management needed an IT infrastructure that could cope with the business’s tapestry of disciplines: manufacturing, accommodation, corporate hospitality, leisure activities and automotive sales.Customer benefits at a glance
- Increases productivity and development capacity
- Several people can simultaneously work on or update information
- Real-time business information and financial reporting within a few clicks
- Extremely user-friendly
- Facilitates improved financial control
- Gradually replaced hard-copy systems that previous technology couldn’t accommodate
- Greater system stability and protection
- Will accommodate and enhance ambitious business developments
The challenge
The IT infrastructure behind G & A Leisure was six years old, was no longer robust enough to support the business in the long term, and was limiting potential efficiency improvements. The management team wanted to modernise to protect and futureproof the company, while giving it flexibility to develop.
“Although our sophisticated spreadsheets worked, relying purely on these exposed us to risks including corrupted files and data loss. We wanted to replicate what we had in
a safer, well-protected and controlled environment."
a safer, well-protected and controlled environment."
“While searching for a new system, I was also keen to see what additional functionality was available that would help take the business to the next level,” explained Andrew Smith, Financial Director of G & A Leisure.
The solution
A technology consultant reviewed the market.
FuseMetrix stood out from the crowd because its team have a ‘can do’ attitude and don’t shy away from ambitious deadlines. These characteristics aligned with G & A Leisure’s own management team, and so the partnership started.
“There is so much functionality, in addition to the core products, within the FuseMetrix platform. What’s more, the extremely capable and honest team behind it have developed some of its functionality to fit our complicated business,” commented Andrew.
The results
Within two months of making the decision to move to FuseMetrix, the business was up and running on the new system. Rather than trying to adopt everything at once, G & A Leisure initially concentrated on the accounts, stock management and stock control modules. Within the following 12 months they had also adopted FuseMetrix’s accommodation planning, till/cash register, booking and CRM modules.
“FuseMetrix is far more flexible than most people might imagine. On the face of it, all our enterprises are so different that they could be standalone businesses, and you’d have thought that they’d need different software packages to run,” added Andrew.
This degree of flexibility will also replace the remaining paper-based systems on the farm, which the business’s technology simply couldn’t accommodate.
Although the spreadsheets were sophisticated, it was difficult to extract business information reports. FuseMetrix enables authorised members of staff to access core reports within three clicks. This improves financial control and efficiency.
“FuseMetrix will enable our current team to achieve more, which will make the business slicker."
“It’s phenomenal what we’ve achieved over just nine months. Considering the challenges and timescales we put to FuseMetrix, this has been no mean feat. This’ll be an ongoing partnership for many years. It’ll take us to the next level and the next direction – G & A Leisure is a company that never stands still,” concluded Andrew.
Back
