Case Study

Our client is an architecture and interior design studio with offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, with over 210 people.

Our client had grown substantially since we started working with them, and currently has offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Consequently, their business systems and infrastructure required stronger foundations that would keep up with their sustained expansion.

The existing systems were unable to meet the needs of their business, as all the information was being pulled together across disconnected and out-dated systems and spreadsheets. The data structure throughout the legacy systems was inconsistent, which contributed to the lack of data reliability. The result of this was a lack of confidence in the information being collated, and hesitations around effective decision making.

“Everyone had their own unique way of entering, storing, and accessing the data, and we had no visibility across those databases. Pulling together reports required a lot of manual work.”

To solve this problem, Management for Design, identified a new ERP system, best suited for the specific requirements of the business,  then supported its implementation and behavioural change within the business, to ensure successful uptake.

Specifically designed for professional services firms, the Business Systems automate and integrate the planning, tracking and administration of finance, projects and resources. Our client implemented finance, invoicing, project accounting and project management modules and client management. All the legacy systems have been phased out. Because all accounting and project management information is centralised within one system, we generated results almost immediately.

“There was no other system that had the functionality and usability that the combination of Management for Design and their Business Management Systems offered. It just felt right.”

 

“By partnering with Management for Design we now have reliable data to build on, invoices are now easily generated and understood, consequently decreasing the likelihood of rejection and cutting the invoicing cycle significantly.”

The new processes enabled a new way of working. Generating invoices is no longer a convoluted and time-consuming process, and the client is easily able to forecast invoicing and future cash flow.

Management reporting is now much clearer as well. With company-wide visibility into the performance of projects and resources, project managers now have access to what they need, and can generate their own reports instead of going through accounting. The principals and project managers are excited about having the ability to run their own reports and being able to have confidence in the data.

“This has allowed me to spend my time on reviewing and analysing the information instead of running reports for people. It’s made my job easier.”

 

“Everyone did the best they could with the information that was available, but most people resorted to spreadsheets in order to have some level of confidence in the data.”

 

“Now we trust the data we’re working with. Management for Design has helped me overcome my biggest hurdle as General Manager — getting people to have confidence in the system and the information in it.”

Reference available on request