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The PA People makes noise with Greentree
When we inherit responsibility for someone else’s business software decisions we usually want to change everything, right? Usually, yes. When David Goodwin took over as Group Financial Controller at The PA People, he was pleasantly surprised to find that Greentree, the business management software he inherited, wasn’t actually broken, so he had no reason to ditch it.
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“Greentree allows us to integrate all areas of our business in a way that we would not have expected possible in a product aimed at SMEs.”
David Goodwin
Group Financial Controller
The PA People
CHALLENGE
The PA People needed a fully integrated enterprise-wide system with a strong CRM capability to help them manage contractual arrangements with their customers. It also needed the potential to add manufacturing and hire activities at some point in the future.
SOLUTION
Greentree’s modular enterprise solution.
RESULTS
Integration of all core and back-office business activities has been achieved. Management has a real-time view of all activities across its project and service divisions at any time. Better reporting informs management about the business’s contractual arrangements with customers. This facilitates better business decision-making processes now and into the future.
As far as he could see, Greentree was doing everything the business needed it to do, integration with other business modules was “fantastic” and he was very happy with it.
The business situation
The purpose of The PA People's business is to make sure that audiences can see and hear exactly what’s going on at public and private events. The business originally focused on providing sales, hire and installation services to churches and schools, and has since extended into contracting, maintenance & testing services, and manufacturing.
A key driver in the decision to install Greentree in the first instance was the need for a more comprehensive and fully integrated system incorporating Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which the previous system didn’t have.
When the business refurbished its showroom, which sells over 3,000 items from 40 manufacturers, and also began a contracted maintenance service division, it had no way to comprehensively manage inventory or its contractual arrangements with customers. The showroom now utilises Greentree’s Inventory module, and CRM is used to manage contractual relationships, which are now core business activities. These needed to integrate with other key business functions and activities.
Fantastic integration
As far as David Goodwin is concerned, “It really is the integration between all the financial modules, as well as the CRM interface, that makes [Greentree] stand apart.” He explains exactly how The PA People deals with customer leads, and how the integration of Greentree’s modules facilitates the flow of information throughout the business.
Ebb and Workflows
A typical customer inquiry would be qualified as either a hire or sales lead and, if a new customer, a new record would be created using the CRM module. If it was a straightforward sales inquiry the Quotation or Invoicing functions would be used, but if it was a larger project-type job, for example the Athens Olympic and Paralympic opening and closing ceremonies, it would be allocated to a Project Manager for Job Costing before a quote could be prepared. Greentree was well up to the task of providing the functional capability required to cost such a large-scale, multi-faceted project.
Greentree’s Workflow module is used to track and trace the progress of each customer transaction through the system. A colour-coded alert system lets users know exactly what the current status of a job is at any given point in real-time. David says that “users have found Greentree to be very intuitive, and they appreciate its power once they manage to get their heads around everything it does”.
Drill-down through a single-source of relational information
Greentree’s modular integration enables users to drill-down through various levels of detailed information and see everything related to a customer, including but not limited to communications, invoicing, sales history, etc. all from within a single source; no duplication of data in multiple places. As far as David is concerned this is invaluable, and serves to empower the business process and its decision-making.
Commitment to the future
At this point, The PA People is looking at the Greentree Approvals & Alerts and Manufacturing modules, and is also looking at how the hire part of the business can be integrated into Greentree.
David says the support The PA People has had from the local Greentree implementation partner has been “fabulous” and this, coupled with “continual upgrades and enhancements show [Greentree’s] commitment to making it better all the time”. These complementary factors make David confident that committing to a future with Greentree is a sound business decision that will stand the test of time and personnel changes for a good few years to come.
Established in Sydney over 30 years ago by one of the present directors of the group, the original aims of the CST Group were to provide cost-effective public address systems. These aims were met through sales, hire and installation of value-for-money equipment.
Soon after its inception, a step forward into manufacturing was taken to complement the expanding sales and rental operations. The company’s activities are now grouped under two trading names: The PA People and Creative Audio.
The PA People is a specialist contractor in the areas of Sound Reinforcement, Performance Lighting, Audio Visual Systems, Video and Communications. Over the past 30 years the company has developed a reputation as one of the industry leaders, with major offices in both Sydney and Brisbane, and associates located in Melbourne and New Zealand.
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