Our detailed business improvement process

Chief Operating Officer, Simon Jeavons FIC sat down to discuss the in-depth process we underwent with one of our customers, HD Sharmans in our business improvement process. A shining example of the power of digital transformation, the work undertaken by Shoothill has transformed HD Sharmans’ business unlocking greater efficiency. 

Starting with a bespoke solution to fit their unique sales management needs as a manufacturer of Plygene, HD Sharmans’ has undertaken further rounds of developments, expanding their system and even entrusting the development of a subsidiary business’s system, Roofcare.

Their bespoke solution has not only helped usher in brand-new growth but firmly established the direction of their business for years to come.

In this article, Simon explains the different stages that HD Sharmans have been through in their work with Shoothill.

Initial consultation and discovery

During the initial consultation with HD Sharmans, we quickly had to build an understanding of their business to be able to provide the appropriate solution to their needs.

Sharmans have a somewhat unique business model, manufacturing and distributing their gutter lining product, Plygene. Plygene is sold directly to contractors, before being fitted to commercial properties. As a result of this niche business model, Sharmans have to handle numerous different points of contact to progress their ongoing projects.

With their business growing organically, they needed robust systems in place to allow their team to continue to flourish. While hiring more staff could have enabled them to manage more work, investing in their enterprise was a more pragmatic and far-sighted approach. Not only allowing the business to grow, but preparing it for greater growth.

In the initial consultation with Shoothill, numerous different approaches were discussed including off-the-shelf solutions. However, both parties recognised that with Sharmans’ unique model and direction, a platform designed to handle exactly how they worked, contacted and managed suppliers was needed.

During this process, we spoke with company directors, management and users of the future system to establish what it had to do, who needed to know what and importantly how it scaled in further development.

The brief

After our consultation concluded, myself and Rod went away to speak with our design team and developers to build our pitch.

It’s at this point that the team get to work, designing an initial system’s look and feel, establishing the processes and flow of the system and eliminating potential pain points.

On our return to Sharmans, we presented our solution to their problem, this included not only the designs we’d drawn up but a roadmap for development and a comprehensive quote.

Development

One of the most important parts of our process, development is where our team build our projects, be that an app, cloud program or advanced website. Initially, this can seem like a slow process for customers as the early stage of development don’t produce a physical system. We start with our back-end engineers building the database that an application will use. Throughout all of development, the team kept Sharmans updated with the development of their platform.

After the back-end database architecture was built, our front-end team began to implement the designs created by the design team, linking up the database, workflow and graphical user interface. This next step in development can be quite rapid, effectively tying together the work we’ve done. 

By keeping in touch with our customers throughout this process, we can pivot and redirect development if necessary, but also make sure they know how their product is coming along. 

Pre-launch and launch

Before a system goes live, be that a mobile app or business platform we launch a beta, to test and refine the system.

For Sharman’s this meant that as we left our testing environment we provided them with access to their system in its near-complete state. To be trailed, have staff trained on it, and build trust in it before it’s rolled out to the entire company.

At launch, Shoothill implemented the cloud-based system into Sharman’s business. Hosted on Shoothill’s Microsoft Azure ecosystem, the team at Sharmans need only log on and get to work.

Support

With all our software solutions the team continue to work to support the businesses and individuals we work with. Making additions, and corrections if required and laying the groundwork for future rounds of development.

Roofcare group  

HD Sharmans’ exponential growth encouraged them to diversify their services. In 2021, RoofCare Group (‘RoofCare’) was launched as a trial, with a full launch in 2022. RoofCare is HD Sharman’s innovative roof drainage monitoring solution, whose services involve the monitoring, analysing, inspection, planning, and reporting of roof drainage data. A service such as this required an equally sophisticated way of managing customer relationships and project delivery. We were approached for a project management web application which would need to meet these needs and deliver extra value wherever possible.

Rediscovery and Sharmans 2.0

Having experienced rapid growth throughout their five years of using Shoothill’s bespoke business management system, Sharmans wanted to bring the rest of their business into the system.

Taking the internal project name Sharmans 2.0, the team at Shoothill began another round of discovery. In this process, we had to learn what other parts of their business could be improved and what new inefficiencies the operation had developed. The next project for Sharmans is currently in the works and will be implemented next year, seeing the company reach for further growth than ever before. 

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