Beaverbrooks the Jewellers is a family business established a century ago ­ and with staff dispersed between branches and head office locations, increased paperwork, administration and information demands had become a significant issue.

Much of Beaverbrooks’ business concerns providing special order items ­ wedding and engagement rings, necklaces, engraved silverware and watches. While each shop stocks the full range of wedding and engagement rings, it is rare that they will have all sizes in stock at every store.

Patrick Walker, head of management information systems, says that most couples choose the design of the ring together and then the ring will be ordered either from a central warehouse, another local branch or directly from a supplier.

“The result is that much of Beaverbrooks’ staff time is taken up following the progression of the order,” he says. “We needed a system that would manage this for us. In addition, we discovered that there was a mass of email going round and round the organisation and not always reaching the appropriate person.”
Collaboration between head office and the branches, a central repository for documentation and a framework to enable company information and knowledge to be exchanged were the desired outcomes that arose from a cross-company focus group.

All company data, regardless of its format or origin, is now held in one place on a central server where it can be easily shared, searched, retrieved, backed up and managed. KnowledgeWorker collaboration, search and workflow tools sit over the top of the data, which is accessed locally or remotely through a web browser interface.

Branch staff now use the central data system extensively for stock enquires, placing special orders, sharing company information and making sure the merchandising in each branch conforms to the current company branding and directives.

For Beaverbrooks, integrating its information and processes into a central collaborative system has led to improved productivity throughout the organisation.

“Improving our methods of storing information and then sharing it between employees has halved our
administration time,” says Walker.

“We keep finding more activities the system can help us with, so we are spending that extra time doing new things with our information to make us even more effective as a business.”