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 20 Years in Business |
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Peter K Scott
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It doesn't seem two minutes since I was running my IT Consultancy business from my dining room table and dashing to grab the telephone before my daughter (then aged two) could answer it and shout 'Exum Systems!'
That was back in 1990 and a lot of things have changed in the 20 years since then, including my daughter who is now 22 years old and expecting a child of her own soon.
To say it's been a roller coaster ride is an understatment. From just £50k turnover in year one, to more than £1million turnover and rising, in just six short years, and twenty staff to look after in purpose built offices. What started as a small Sage Accounts consultancy turned into a market leading motor trade software company with clients like Unipart Automotive, Ford Motor Company and Finelist Group Plc.
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| Exford Systems Ltd |
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Exford Systems was set up in Bolton, Lancashire, in January of 1990 as a Sage Dealer and IT Consultancy. After working in the motor trade since leaving school (at my Father's motor factoring business) I decided to have a change of career and exploit what was then an emerging PC market. I trained as a Sage dealer and became a Sovereign Development Centre and for the first two years earned a good living in the Manchester area supplying and installing computerised accounting systems. Everything was great but I had a feeling that writing my own software instead of selling other people's might be a way to more profit. |
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| Garage Master/Unipart Kis/Concept 2000 |
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As is often the case a lot of things happen by chance and my story is no exception. I had written a bespoke program for a local builder to handle parts and labour invoicing for Sage (Invoice Master) and I was convinced by a good friend of mine to write a version for his independent garage (Bowling Ryan Ltd.) Garage Master was thus born. Garage Master was an easy to use garage administration system that handled jobsheets, invoices, stock, service histories etc. It was well liked because it had been written by someone in the industry, and not a techie. A philosophy that still applies to everything that I do today. Sales of the software were slow in the beginning but, with the proper marketing in Garage News and Motor Trader, I soon had large number of users.
The big break for me came in 1994 when I managed to negotiate a deal with Unipart Automotive to include my garage software along with their electronic parts catalogue which they called KiS (Keep it simple) KiS was a parts look up system, with Unipart product prices and job repair times, that a garage could use to quote for work to his customers. My Garage Master software was bundled with it as an option. The clever thing that Unipart did was to offer garages a complete computer system for FREE, provided that they bought their parts from Unipart. It was a simple idea but many thousands of garages subscribed to the scheme and Unipart's part sales soared! Of course it wasn't long before other parts suppliers got wise and decided to implement their own computer catalogue schemes. The Finelist Group Plc approached me to develop a system for them which we called Concept 2000 and which was launched that same year. This system was also 'tied in' to parts sales but it differed from Unipart in that it had an 'all makes' catalogue database. We had to work closely with all the main parts manufacturers and distributors to get their catalogue data onto the system.
But all good things must come to an end. There are only so many hours in a day and running these huge national schemes became a very time consuming business for me. When Finelist Group Plc made moves to purchase my software division I negotiated a buyout deal with them that included a version of my software also being sold to Unipart. It took a while to get the right contract drawn up, but in May 1998 I walked away from garage software completely to concentrate on my Data Divison and catalogue production services. |
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| Sunstyle Designs |
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Being involved with the Unipart KiS electronic catalogue system and having designed the Concept 2000 electronic catalogue system for Finelist I had gained a lot of experience with automotive data and particularly parts catalogue computer systems. My contacts in the industry, gained through working with Finelist Group and Unipart, included most of the main parts suppliers in the UK. I therefore decided to utilise my experience in these areas and channel them into catalogue production.
Sunstyle Designs now exists to help automotive parts manufacturers, distributors and importers to save money with their cataloguing systems. I don't have twenty staff to contend with but I do have a team of people around me who can offer a more personalised service to my customers.This website gives full details of my cataloguing services and my experience within the automotive industry. |
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 Contact me today for more information on how I can help you with Your Catalogues |
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Sunstyle Designs UK
5 Sharples Green, Edgworth, Near Bolton, Lancashire, BL7 0DG, United Kingdom
E-mail: sunstyledesigns@gmail.com
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