Hillarys decision to migrate to the HANA platform extends their commitment to SAP as its core business system. Birchman is Hillarys’ SAP reseller, implementation and support partner. Birchman has a reputation for being a pragmatic, ‘safe pair of hands’ when it comes to implementing new SAP functionality.
“We’ve certainly benefitted from Birchman’s deep HANA experience gained from other early adopters, particularly in helping us navigate past the marketing hype to understand and evaluate the real strategic benefit of this move. The rationale has been strengthened by the announcement of SAP S/4 HANA® earlier this year, that we’re on the path to adopting,” said Julian Bond, Head of ICT at Hillarys.
“HANA technology will provide some immediate performance advantages, but the bigger prize will be a simplified and streamlined systems capability that will support continued innovation, business growth and our transformation to a true digital enterprise,” he continued.
Over recent years Hillarys has developed a class-leading track record in harnessing business improvements from the innovative application of appropriate information technology, and particularly SAP-centric solutions. Hillarys was an early adopter of the SAP NetWeaver™ technology to facilitate and control the flow of information to and from the Advisors. More recently it has been in the vanguard of enterprise mobility, with multiple awards and accolades for its principal project that utilises the SAP Mobile Platform. Now close to 100% of Hillarys orders are captured in the customer’s home or over the web.
Hillarys is a high volume business and process more than 12,000 orders a week and make 35,000 blinds. It draws significant business insight from their use of SAP analytics which has helped the business grow consistently even in the difficult economic climate business has faced over the last years.
Richard Taylor, Partner, Birchman Group, said, “The SAP S/4 HANA Business Suite offers significant opportunity to existing customers such as Hillarys and we are delighted to be their trusted partner and support their journey. Birchman has been an SAP partner since 1994 and pride ourselves on embracing new technology and solutions from SAP – we’ve invested heavily in the skills of our consultants, set-up a HANA lab for customers and prospects, and now offer HANA in the Cloud as a Service”.
About Hillarys:
Hillarys was established in Nottingham in 1971, manufacturing, selling and fitting a small range of made-to-measure blinds. Today, as the market leader, the Hillarys Group of companies continues to manufacture and sell a range of made-to-measure window coverings which now includes blinds, curtains, shutters and awnings in the UK and Republic of Ireland. This is done through the Hillarys brand offering the original in-home sales and installation service, direct sales to the trade through the Arena brand and retail sales through e-commerce brands Web-Blinds and Blinds Supermarket. Hillarys employs over 1,200 people over three sites, two in Nottingham and one in Washington Tyne & Wear and has a network of over 1000 self-employed Advisors who provide an in-home service, selling and installing core and specialist products.
Visit Hillarys online: www.hillarys.co.uk
Twitter: www.twitter.com/hillarysblinds
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LoveHillarys.
About Birchman:
The Birchman Group is an international business providing consulting and IT services. It is both an SAP value added reseller and an SAP services partner. Its focus is providing support to companies deploying the new SAP technology including HANA, SuccessFactors, Cloud for Customer as well as continuing to sell, implement and support core SAP. Birchman has had a HANA lab for over 3 years and the Birchman HANA Cloud offering that can be used for Proof of Concepts as well as hosting HANA development, quality assurance and production environments.
Visit Birchman online: www.thebirchmangroup.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/BirchmanGroup
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/the-birchman-group
Linked In: www.linkedin.com/the-birchman-group
