Entec Case Study
Entec Services Reviewed Alternate Software, But Nimbus was a Superior Solution
Entec Services has used Nimbus for more than a dozen years. During this time the company has acquired several new divisions and grown from a staff of 15 to almost 100. Last year they began investigating other software solutions to handle the company’s growing business. After extensive research and even trialing a solution that connected separate inventory management and field service management software to an off the shelf accounting program, it was clear that other solutions would fall far short of the complex needs of the company.
Instead Entec decided to renew its relationship with Nimbus and expand its use of the system.
Historically the company provided services to oil and gas customers but has recently diversified into many other industries. Its mechanical, electrical and instrumentation teams work on process plants across all parts of New Zealand’s heavy industrial sector. Entec also sells and services gas detection equipment. Finally, Entec has a manufacturing division that builds electrical switchboards and control panels.
Entec’s diversification strategy has broadened its customer base considerably. But adding all these new business divisions has meant also adding levels of complexity. Each new division brought existing processes and cultures, which made it challenging to use Nimbus to its fullest capacity.
Lani Wardrop, Admin Manager at Entec, says there was a recognition that for a complex company, its systems were much too manual. Entec had underutilised Nimbus in the past and because key staff were reluctant to use the system, it was difficult to use Nimbus more efficiently.
As a result, she initiated a frank discussion with Nimbus, explaining the company’s needs and goals. Entec wanted to improve the way it handled quoting and creditor invoicing. And, like many contracting companies, it wanted a way to track time, equipment, POs, jobs, and other items using mobile devices from the field.
Nimbus had just hired Daryl Woodward as its Client Relationship Manager and tasked him with supporting relationships with Nimbus clients.
Wardrop says that Entec was likely only using about 30% of the capabilities within Nimbus. “We absolutely do not use the system as intended.” With a system wide upgrade and changes to some of the company’s existing processes, Nimbus could fulfill all the company’s expectations. Entec needed to get more training and regular refreshers to ensure that it was using the system to its full capabilities.
Employee growth has led to an influx of a younger, more technologically astute workforce that is happy to get rid of paper, and there’s fresh excitement at Entec for the changes to come.
“With the upgrade we had a big meeting for two days and went through all the areas of the business and identified issues, which have been condensed down to 7 tasks. We know we will save time and make things more efficient and use the system better.”
As they move through the task list, the company will also standardize processes so that all its divisions have the same approach.
Nimbus will be able to address the key pain points identified by the company and there are
major time saving changes that are slated for the latter half of the year when Entec will integrate creditor invoicing (NimbuScan) and Mobile Worker.
Currently, Wardrop says, invoicing is entirely manual. “We are putting through about 1000 creditor invoices a month and some of them are four pages long of electrical parts. We are manually typing every single line on these invoices. The amount of time we are wasting is just huge. Being able to import creditor invoices into the system straight from email was very much a large part of our looking to change.”
Invoice scanning could save so much time that she would reassign one administrator role.
It might be a cliché to say that a big reason for Entec’s decision is about the people, but Wardrop says it was refreshing to have very honest conversations with Nimbus about the fact that her company had reviewed alternate software.
“One of the reasons for staying with Nimbus is the people at Nimbus. They are based in NZ. It does make it easier. But it’s also because they can tweak the system for weird things that our company does. With the bigger out of the box programs, they will say that’s just the way that our software works, and you can’t change it unless 100 clients want it changed.”
Entec is excited to be moving its business forward in partnership with Nimbus, identifying and removing inefficient processes so that it can better measure and improve company performance.