CUSTOMERS

THE GALLAGHER GROUP
Builds success on Microsoft Technology

Company background

The Gallagher Group has established itself as one of the leading property development enterprises in the UK. As a Master Town Developer, the Group promotes large development projects with a residential focus, sells residential housing land to house builders and also develops and retains commercial property, particularly retail parks.

IT requirements

Due to its continued growth, Gallagher realised it was rapidly outgrowing its existing IT infrastructure and that the old information management system was failing to provide the required level of flexibility and integration. It was at this point that the Group’s relationship with Navision (now part of Microsoft Business Solutions) and Navision Solution Centre, Metaphorix, was first established.

Objectives

“With our previous IT system, information was not readily accessible on a supplier-by-supplier basis within projects,” explained Gallagher’s financial controller Bob Dean. “Also, it could not identify which individual invoices had been recharged to, and paid by, our Joint Venture partners. Furthermore it did not provide us with easily accessible project history information and we really needed to have easy access to costs relating to stock and projects that had been previously written off. Other issues included its inability to compare amounts invoiced and cash paid against budget, the absence of an easy to follow Trial Balance, and an inflexible reporting module. We realised that we were going to be asking a lot from a replacement system.”

Setback

Gallagher initially decided on a new solution supplied by a local software reseller. “The specification process for a replacement IT system began back in February 1999, with the local supplier starting work in August of the same year. Unfortunately the project suffered many delays and still had not been completed by October 2000, which is when the supplier went into liquidation”.

Back on track

At this time Gallagher sourced a new Navision partner to undertake the work. “It was soon apparent that Metaphorix had the required competency and detailed understanding of our business needs,” said Dean.

The solution

The solution was Microsoft Business Solutions’ Navision Edition. “We have found Navision to be a very easy system to learn. Payment processing is more efficient than on our previous IT package, which has enabled us to absorb increasing volumes of work.  Also, tracing postings is a lot more efficient using the system’s Navigate facility.” Metaphorix staff began the project in January 2001 and the system originally went live in August the same year.

As part of the customisation, Gallagher now enjoys a sub-contractor module written to retain information related to the Construction Industry Scheme (certification of sub-contractors and income tax deduction from payments). Also, a recharge module was re-written to provide increased functionality as from March 2003.

Fitting business needs

The key benefits of the solution implemented into Gallagher are its ease of use and totally integrated functionality. It also has an in-built management reporting pack for an instant view of any area of the business, particularly snapshot views of current projects. Navision caters for Gallagher in other ways as well, as the company rents both commercial and private properties and needs the ability to manage and maintain that portfolio.

Moving forward, Gallagher is continuing to grow as a business and sees Navision as ideally placed to support its growing needs.