The BOSS service has allowed Marston’s to maximise the benefits of SAP without the hassle.

Client: Marston’s

Like many SAP users, brewing giant Marston’s discovered that it didn’t have the breadth of skills in-house to make the most of its implementation. So it turned to Bluefin for support.

Bluefin Off Site Services (BOSS) started out providing routine front-line support services for Marston’s. But its flexible approach, expertise, energy and openness saw the relationship blossom – and BOSS now routinely contributes to Marston’s strategic plans for its SAP set-up.

Key Benefits:

• Straightforward billing and contract management.
• Expertise on tap, allowing the client to exploit every facet of SAP.
• Flexibility to manage bursts of support and development activity.
• Consistency of personnel.

The Problem

"Marston’s is a £600m turnover business, but we only have 28 full-time IT staff," says Phil Cartwright, systems development manager at Marston’s. "As soon as you move to SAP, it becomes apparent that you need a very diverse skill set – it’s hard to develop all the competencies you need with a relatively small number of people. So you’re talking about a requirement for a 20-something-strong team just in support and development, not just the whole department."

In fact, Marston’s had a number of third-party vendors supporting its SAP implementation. While this ensured access to some of the niche expertise it needed to exploit the power of the system, the arrangement was also unwieldy. "When you have a number of suppliers all with a small interest in a larger undertaking, it becomes too easy for individual issues to be passed around," says Phil.

A third problem was that demand for support was far from constant. Both in-house IT teams and its consultancies would face quiet periods, followed by intense bouts of activity. "It’s not just the range of skills we required," he explains. "The demands on an IT function like this are elastic. It just wouldn’t be efficient to staff up for peak demand and have people idle at other times." 

The Solution

Marston’s needed to find an expert SAP BW partner to support its systems. "A Bluefin consultant was already at Marston’s to support their SAP platform," says Mark Buchanan, Director of BOSS. "At that point, they decided to set up an ongoing support contract which has really grown with increasing SAP support."

BOSS’s strength in depth on SAP solved the first problem: the need for breadth of expertise. The Marston’s IT team is still a critical component – they have important project management and development roles. "But they’re free to focus on those areas now that we run all their support services," says Mark. "And because we have many more SAP experts, with a broader range of skills, than a company of Marston’s size would ever be able to justify in its IT department, we can offer them a degree of flexibility that suits them perfectly."

That breadth of expertise also dealt with problem two, the proliferation of suppliers. "Marston’s is in complete control of the arrangement," says Mark. "We provide straightforward weekly reports on usage and performance – and feedback is a crucial aspect of what we do, of course. If we sat remotely and just answered support queries, it simply wouldn’t work. We try to work as an extension of the customer’s team – almost an invisible member of their IT group."

And because BOSS services a number of clients, additional resources can be brought to bear when Marston’s demands peak. "BOSS can smooth demand across their client base," says Phil. "If you’re too dictatorial about dedicated resources, you weaken the BOSS service and that means you weaken your own business. But when we really need help, they deliver every time."

As a result, BOSS has undertaken Marston’s support for the past three years.

Why BOSS?

"Bluefin was in the early stages of developing BOSS when we started talking – so they seemed like a good fit for us," says Phil. "We knew they were industry leaders in BW development – and their support offering was just as strong. In any case, it had become apparent that supporting a small part of an SAP implementation wasn’t the best use of resources. Bluefin understood that, saw the potential to set up a flexible approach covering a host of potential issues and so the arrangement was escalated."

BOSS was also attractive because of its approach to account management. Rather than offer customers a fixed support contract, the team tailors its offering to each situation. "We don’t walk in and put a fixed price on the table – it’s more like a menu card," says Mark. "Together, we can assemble exactly the right service for the client."

Building Relationships

Although the BOSS offering was immediately attractive to Marston’s, the way the service is run has cemented the relationship. The watchword is “partnership”. For example, BOSS staff routinely train customers’ own IT personnel to fix commonly occurring problems – it’s real “open book” support. "Customers often tell us that we must be losing revenue by doing that, rather than billing for each time the problem crops up," says Mark. "But by enabling the customer to handle things themselves, we build up an entirely different level of trust – and they’ll feel able to come to us with much more difficult questions. That keeps our teams stimulated – and opens the door to more interesting projects in the future."

 
"There are lots of reasons for the success of this relationship," says Mark. "But one must be that, three years into the relationship, all the BOSS people who were working on the contract at the beginning are still here. A lot of outsourcing companies will move their best people around different clients, and backfill with juniors once they’re up and running. But while managing customer relationships at the senior levels is important, we think it’s critical to look at how they work on the ground, too."

A Strategic Partner

The drinks industry is very competitive and the pricing of products, for example, is extremely sensitive. Marston’s needs every advantage available in terms of efficiency and clarity within the business. "So once one part of the operation has been improved, it’s straight onto something else," says Mark. "That’s why it’s essential their own IT people are free to focus on development and building their own relationships throughout the business – without worrying about support."

"Without a doubt, Bluefin is Marston’s key IT supplier," says Phil. "They’re the people I go to first on any issue." That’s why Marston’s has recently added its order fulfilment process – "the crown jewels of the business," according to Phil – to the BOSS arrangement.

How it Works

Customers can tailor the whole service, right down to the exact data they want in the weekly reports. "Everything is configurable to the client’s spec – and while they often think this must create a large overhead, it’s part of the package with us," says Mark. "Technology changes so rapidly that support needs to adapt quickly, too."

That’s something clients really appreciate. "The way we work is simple: we say no service level agreement or contract should limit or prescribe the professional standards someone should adopt to solve a problem," says Phil. "And we know that Bluefin has a clear focus on knowledge transfer within their own organisation to ensure that we’re not constantly paying for someone to be trained on the job while they’re working on our business."

"We get a monthly service review from BOSS and then talk it through with them to highlight any areas we think we need to look at," he adds. "I can flag up anything that looks unusual and BOSS is always happy to consider these assessments. If they’re reasonable, they’re happy to accept your perspective."

Communication is another big factor. BOSS runs a large support team, all based in the UK. "Our customers really appreciate that," says Mark. "It’s all about dealing with people who have a sense of humour as well as a sense of what sets Bluefin and BOSS apart – a willingness to get the job done right, and to work as an extension of a customer’s team."