A SAP Business One customer since 2014, PolyGlobal is a family-run business based in Wakefield, established in 1985. They are a bespoke manufacturing company specialising in engineering plastics, using their wide experience of the plastics industry to supply their customers with quality products and personal service. Lets take a look at the history of PolyGlobal and SAP Business One.
In the years before launching SAP Business One, PolyGlobal struggled with processes that were manual and time-consuming, business units that were not able to make decisions quickly and was not able to access real-time information. They needed a system that would be flexible enough to accommodate their complex operations while providing the structure and capabilities of a large enterprise.
Polyglobal and SAP Business One
Previous to implementing SAP Business One, PolyGlobal were operating a bespoke system that didn’t provide any reporting functions and was limited in the information that it stored, leaving no opportunity for growth and as the system was not integrated with their CRM or accounting packages, they faced additional challenges such as the duplication of work and manual data entry which is not only time consuming but also inefficient.
“We needed a scalable, integrated solution that could grow with the business, offer accurate insight into all areas and provide easy access to real time information” comments Andy Young: PolyGlobal, Sales & Marketing Manager.
The SAP Business One on-premise solution was originally implemented in 2014 by Signum Solutions, an award-winning UK SAP Gold Partner who specialise in the implementation and support of SAP Business One.
The project had the full buy-in from the management team at PolyGlobal and with the knowledge and expertise of the Signum Solutions team, the implementation was completed on time and within budget.
The result of implementing SAP Business One was gaining an integrated solution that delivers real time information relating to all areas of the business; ensuring management gets a realistic view of the business’s performance.
The SAP Business One solution also automates many of the processes that were once done manually, ensuring maximum efficiency by saving time and increasing productivity.
Being an integrated solution means data can be shared easily between departments to enable accurate, timely forecasting of future growth and change.
“SAP Business One is an extremely broad and holistic package that unites all business departments under one platform and gives sufficient options to create bespoke modifications whilst maintaining effective process flow and control” Says Andy.
As a way to cope with fast and significant growth, PolyGlobal invested heavily in machinery, software, and technology. And in 2019, they made the forward-thinking decision to move their traditional SAP Business One system onto a hosted platform however, they experienced significant and recurring problems with their provider which resulted in them moving to Signum’s infrastructure hosted platform.
“The new solution from Signum is extremely stable and is much quicker in processing speeds with no restrictions to access times and no downtime as far as I can recall” – Andy Young.
Before COVID restrictions were put in place, the office staff at PolyGlobal all worked on site, however when the restrictions came into play, the ability to switch to remote working without any additional steps for continued SAP Business One access was extremely beneficial to the business. Operating a hosted solution also allows for Signum Solutions to complete any necessary updates of bespoke modifications to document layouts or systems within SAP with ease.
The relationship between Signum Solutions and PolyGlobal has developed into a long-term partnership that has grown exponentially over the past 5 years with increased added value above and beyond the platform support. Andy states: “the ability to focus with a couple of key contacts within Signum is of great benefit to PolyGlobal. Long term changes and development of the system can be done without explaining the aims/directions repeatedly and there is a broad spectrum of knowledge within Signum so the ability to speak to different experts when required is invaluable”
Now PolyGlobal and SAP Business One deliver all of the critical functionality needed to provide high quality service and gain increased customer satisfaction. The company can confidently grow its business, as well as, having the tools in place to scale for growth.
About PolyGlobal
The Wakefield based business was established in 1985 as Polyurethane Progress Ltd by Olivia Gledhill and her son, Neil Cook. Olivia and Neil saw a gap in the market for injection moulded polyurethane seals. At the time, polyurethane wasn’t a particularly well- known material, especially its characteristics, versatility, and flexibility. They founded the company as an injection moulded polyurethane seal company, later developing into other injection, and cast moulded components and extending their range of materials.
For more information visit: https://www.polyglobal.co.uk/