Winning formula: Nominated Acumatica Global Business Partner of the Year 2023, 2024

Lombard Tyres Branch.

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At Brilliant Cloud, we are proud to be acknowledged as one of the top business partners for Acumatica Cloud ERP globally. Many ask, what is our winning formula? As one of our managing directors puts it: "It's all about focusing on the basics. Keep striving for excellent service levels and customers will walk the journey together with you."

We challenged ourselves by doing a case study on one of our clients, Lombard Tyres. What better way to dissect our formula for success than with feedback from one of our clients.

Lombard Tyres is one of the biggest independent tyre and other auto fitment-related dealers in South Africa with stores in Gauteng, North-West and Limpopo provinces. Following a successful migration from SAP & Sage 200 Evolution to Acumatica, the Brilliant Cloud team sat down with Sean Kruger, Managing Director at Lombard Tyres, to discuss his view of how Acumatica has impacted the business.

Choosing enterprise resource planning software goes beyond the technology. It's a decision that often makes business leaders nervous as it will impact operations, efficiency, strategy, decision-making and, most importantly, the profitability of your business. At Brilliant Cloud, we never take a one-size-fits-all approach. We tailor solutions to the needs of your business.

We started by asking Kruger what the key objectives were that informed his decision for choosing ERP software for the business.

"Our business is divided into three segments. Namely, our retail segment, a wholesale segment and our commercial segment. Looking for an ERP system is a bit more complicated for us as we require a solution that can cater to all three segments of our business. We need something that can integrate retail, wholesale and manufacturing. At the same time, the system must be simple enough for each of the different businesses to use.

"Stockholding and moving stock is a large portion of our daily operations. It’s important for us to have tight control. We purchase locally and also import, so we need a solution that can handle the landed costs."

With the advancement in technology, at face value, it may seem like all software can do the job. However, many business leaders find themselves choosing systems that they later need to augment with third-party plugins to supplement the shortfalls of the system. This has often proved to be cumbersome and costly.

Kruger continued: "To be honest, we all know that salespeople are salespeople. Everyone promises the best from the solutions they offer. But one of the things that stood out with Acumatica was the ability to pull a historical stock valuation. It sounds like something quite simple, but this was something we couldn’t do before that we can do quite easily. This has a significant impact on our audits. Most accounting packages cater to a single business sector, and a system that caters to all our retail, wholesale and manufacturing needs is a definite win for us. Acumatica offers quite a range of capabilities, some that we needed and others that we didn’t. It was great that Brilliant Cloud ensured that we could tailor the solution to our needs. If any additional requirements fell outside of the capabilities of the software, their in-house team developed a solution within the program for us."

Going that extra mile is part of our formula for success. We make the migration seamless and are at the client's side the whole way. Service excellence is at the core of our approach when implementing Acumatica ERP software for our clients.

Oftentimes, business leaders see the symptoms quite early when they have outgrown the software they use within their business. However, the biggest point of contention is changing something that has worked for many years to a system that may have an initial steep learning curve.

So, how did Brilliant Cloud and Lombard Tyres navigate this challenge?

"Nobody likes change, but everyone loves doing things better and more efficiently. Acumatica, being a web-based solution, allows us to simply drag and drop documents into the in-built document management function. Before, we’d have to print out invoices and statements for creditors' reconciliations, but now, as the team books in new stock, they can just store the invoice digitally and access it easily at the end of the month. Our audits have also become pain-free since we can simply share login details with our auditors, and they can access the information they need at a click of a button."

“The software may have excellent functionality, but if it’s not implemented correctly, the entire process would be a disaster. We have had such a great experience knowing that we are dealing with the right business partner. We were immediately assured by the fact that the team has standardised processes, ticks boxes that need to be completed and ensures that our needs are of utmost priority throughout. We had the comfort of seeing the roadmap of what will be done so every party involved knows where we are going and how we’ll be getting there.

"Stef Fourie, one of the directors at Brilliant Cloud, was very hands-on and we appreciated that. Even when we had a few teething issues, in the beginning, he personally went into one of our branches to investigate and solve the challenges. Accounting software isn’t something you want to change every three years, so we are really glad to have a system that we can truly grow with."

This case study shows a few key factors. Ultimately, it's not only about choosing the right software solution. It's also about navigating the journey with a partner who takes it upon themselves to make the process pain-free and worth the investment. Ensuring they are setting your business up for success while standing with you every step of the way. From scoping to the implementation to post-go-live support.

It may seem simplistic, but it is only through our laser focus on the details, no matter how insignificant they may seem, and our utmost dedication to our customers, that we have been able to proudly be nominated as the Acumatica Global Business Partner of the Year for two consecutive years, 2023 and 2024.