Ian Williams Group, one of the UK's leading property services companies, and COINS, the leading solutions provider to the sector, are pleased to announce an agreement to implement COINS ERP across Ian Williams’ head office and branch operations. The Ian Williams Group delivers services to the built environment with particular expertise in the commercial, education and social housing sectors through its network of 12 UK offices, using a system based on an early version of COINS.

Steve Harvey, IT Manager, explains: “Ian Williams introduced COINS into the business way back in 1993 and decisions were made to go the custom route, to develop certain modules in-house and to build interfaces with other off the shelf packages over the years. When I joined, approximately three years ago, it was clear that our business systems had served us well but we needed a strategy to replace them with a modern, integrated solution.”

“Early last year, we kicked off the selection process and had initial presentations from 6 potential suppliers,” continues Harvey. “We arrived at a shortlist of 3 suppliers who were invited to respond to our ITT geared towards what we called “proof of concept” - a total of more than 500 questions covering back-office accounting and administration processes, such as HR and Transport, and front-office processes, such as CRM, Response Maintenance, Planned Maintenance and Handheld solutions. All 3 solutions were reviewed by the Ian Williams project team in intensive “proof of concept” sessions towards the end of the year, and COINS emerged as the best overall fit to our needs.”

The new COINS Open Architecture system will handle Ian Williams financial and management accounting, procurement and commercial requirements, with approximately 250 users. The in-house developed “SOP” module for small works is being replaced by COINS-FM, which is an integral part of the system. The new system also includes web based document management and workflow tools, which can be configured by Ian Williams to support specific business processes such as query management, credit management, electronic approvals and authorisation.

Harvey continues: “We are hugely impressed with the new COINS Open Architecture: it is intuitive, user friendly, comprehensive and very flexible. The new Reporting and Business Intelligence tools, available as an integral part of the system are excellent, probably the most impressive part of the system. We will be able to customise screens and reports, particularly to meet specific client requirements, without moving away from the standard product as we had done previously. Another unique feature is COINS ETC which is going to enable us to process 50% of our purchase invoice volume electronically at a fairly early stage.”

A key aspect of the relationship with COINS is that Ian Williams will be working together to deliver client-focused solutions, such as integration with the dynamic scheduling package Optitime.

David Sewell, Finance Director and sponsor for the project, states: “Despite the short-term pressures which are coming from some parts of the economy, management focus is on strengthening the long-term. The business has a long history with COINS dating back to 1993, although very much at ‘arms length’ because we had done so much of our own programming over the years. Not only did COINS demonstrate the advantages of adopting a standard integrated approach, but the company fits well as a strategic partner. As it stands our agreement maps out the next 7 years, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still running COINS, in whatever form it takes, in 15 years time!”

Chris Westbury, Director of Project Management at COINS, states: “We are delighted that Ian Williams has chosen to replace their existing systems with COINS Open Architecture. Whilst this is going to be a challenging project, the thoroughness of their evaluation process and the knowledge, quality and enthusiasm of the Ian Williams team inspires huge confidence.”