PartMaster is a Kiwi auto parts business founded 20 years ago that has grown to become a 17 branch network across New Zealand, with a team of 110 employees. Growing to this size and maintaining the same personalised service true to Partmaster’s values has been an ongoing challenge, one that current CEO John Cook has tackled with technology…
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1967 was a big year for Tony Covic. The young mechanic, fresh from a motor course in Yugoslavia, settled in West Auckland and set up a small automotive parts shop on Lincoln Road, Henderson. With his two sons Steve and Filip by his side, Tony built Covic Motors from a back yard garage into a thriving business serving the local community.
News of the personalised and professional service at Covic Motors soon spread and before long the business expanded, eventually becoming Partmaster in 1996. Almost 50 years after its inception, the business remains a wholly-owned Kiwi Company.
The business is now a 17 branch network across New Zealand, with a team of 110 employees. Growing to this size and maintaining the same personalised service true to Partmaster’s values has been an ongoing challenge, one that current CEO John Cook has tackled with technology.
Communication
As the company continued to expand, Partmaster realised the importance of connecting their workforce with great communication tools.
Partmaster’s IT Manager Simon Wilkinson explains, “We wanted to improve the way our team connected and collaborated with each other, our head office and our customers. We considered a couple of business software options, but Office 365 was an obvious choice as we were already using Microsoft solutions, and knew Office 365 would be a seamless transition.
“Office 365 was the best solution for Partmaster’s environment, as it opened up a world of opportunity with services such as Yammer and provided additional online storage with OneDrive,” says Simon.
Before the migration to Office 365, Partmaster operated in-house mail servers. Only a small number of the management team could access mail on their phones and email storage was limited. Spam emails were also an ongoing problem, something the business no longer has to contend with. But perhaps the most significant improvement to Partmaster’s communication was the adoption of Yammer.
Employees were disconnected across the various branches, there was a lack of communication and an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality. Yammer has brought the various branches together and enabled the team to connect and share information. Employees engage in polling activities to make group decisions, and share handy sales tips or experiences that might be helpful for other team members.
A buddy system for the sales reps has also evolved from Yammer, helping the less experienced reps gain valuable knowledge and understanding from those at the top of their game.
Rob Harrison, a senior sales rep at North Shore Partmaster explains how it works.
“Junior sales reps are matched with a senior sales rep and via Yammer these senior reps share advice, answer questions, chat online and mentor them in the early stages of their Partmaster career in a really accessible and informal way.
“Our work is fast paced. We don’t have time to craft perfect emails, and the conversations in Yammer make it easy to quickly share information on a topic.
“Recently I shared a photo of an instore display that was driving sales for this particular product, so that my buddy could also implement a similar set up and achieve his targets,” says Rob.
Operations Manager Savio Steves says Office 365 also helps maximise sales productivity, “We can now work on-the-go with ease. It has helped our team to achieve more by freeing up people’s time and improving productivity. The sales team don’t need to return to the office to check emails anymore, with Office 365 they can check their email in-between meetings.”
Security
The move to the cloud has made life easier for Partmaster’s IT department too. Data security is now less of an issue for the business, due to the excellent security provided by Microsoft Azure.
“Now the servers are not on the premise, back-ups are automatic, and our data is safe in the cloud – I can relax knowing the system is almost taking care of itself,” says Simon.
Identity
“Our physical stores embody who we are as a company, but maintaining a digital identity has been more difficult. However, we can now achieve this through Office 365, with the ability to customise the Office 365 portal to our business.
“Partmaster branding is now cohesive and professional within Office 365. All email signatures are consistent nationwide and are centrally managed from head office,” says Simon.
Transforming old systems
Partmaster found their old systems were cumbersome and impacting their potential to grow. They decided it was time to modernise their technology platform, to improve business processes and ensure team members could access resources from anywhere in the world.
John explains, “We started on this journey to find the right solution, and after looking worldwide for a cloud based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) we kept coming back to Microsoft Dynamics Navision (NAV). This will be going live in April next year.
“Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Office 365 together will deliver the tools we need to manage our business and help our people achieve more.
“The solution will bring together our data, documents and applications from point of sale, through to finance, and stock planning – which is an important part of our business. For us, it is critical to get the right stock to the right locations, so enabling every employee across the country to see what stock we have, at any time, will be a huge benefit,” says John.
Partmaster recognises that the retail landscape has changed hugely in the last five years, and is continuing to evolve.
“Workshop owners want to see the full range of products when our reps visit them, be able to order online, and have the parts arrive instantly so they can get back to working on the car.
“With Dynamics NAV our sales reps will be able to look up pricing online, place an order right there with the customer and know that the courier will be on its way immediately,” says John.
Looking to the future
CEO John Cook says the move to Office 365 has already significantly improved communication and productivity, and he’s looking forward to continuing Partmaster’s digital transformation with Dynamics Navision and Dynamics Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
“In just a few months we’ve seen so many positive changes and we’re eager to implement the next step – an integrated CRM system which will completely change the way we manage our customer interactions.
“We will have the ability to store all of our customers’ information in one place, and protect our data from being lost – a risk we have with our current system of recording everything on paper sheets. Most importantly, CRM will make it easy for a new staff member to quickly get up to speed on previous customer interactions and provide better customer service as a result.
“It’s the next step to empowering our team to do and achieve more, while still maintaining the truly personalised service that was the foundation the Covics built the business on almost half a century ago,” explains John.