HansaWorld hauls tractor firm into Internet age

Heads Tractor is a 27-year-old business that sells, repairs and services tractors for agricultural and industrial clients including mines, building contractors, earthmoving companies, municipalities, government agencies, golf courses, schools and factories.

The company also imports and distributes parts for tractors and other agricultural equipment.

Heads Tractor is based in Pretoria and most of its clients are located in the greater Tshwane area, with other clients in all the other provinces. It has 22 employees and serves around 800 to 900 clients a year.

During 2004 the founders sold the company to a team of entrepreneurs, with experience in the IT and other industries, who have a vision to grow Heads Tractor into a national business, supported by strong systems and an empowered staff.

Our major drive was to enable growth by taking a business that was technologically restricted and supporting it with a decent platform to unlock its value and leapfrog the competition.

Leaping ahead

At the time, Heads Tractor used a custom-made accounting and management system that was reliable, but limited. In the words of new owner Chris de Wet: "We identified the existing system as a risk, although it was purpose-built for the company, because the support was limited and it was based on a very old platform. It also couldn't handle e-business or remote access, and therefore posed a huge constraint on our future opportunities. We're in an industry where most of our competitors are very far from using technology to its fullest and a good system could really set us apart. We were looking for something that would mitigate our IT risks, help position us strategically and leapfrog the competition."

De Wet and his team decided that a new system needed to offer integrated support and control in all three pillars of Heads Tractor's business: stock management, repairs and sales and distribution. In particular, they needed a system that offered:

* Good integration between all elements of the business.
* An excellent stock management system.
* Support for imports, including multi-currency transactions to enable accurate costing and compliance to new accounting practices.
* Easy, effective job control for the repairs workshop with integration to stock management.
* Strong support for over the counter sales as well as wholesale and national distribution.

Heads Tractor was also looking for a system that was flexible enough to allow some customisation for the business, without compromising the ability to upgrade to future versions. "A tractor business is unlike any other," says De Wet. "Tractors have an incredibly long productive life - we are repairing machines that are 25 years old and more - and there are lots of archaic business practices that hold important historical wisdom we needed to capture and preserve."

At the same time, De Wet wanted to avoid making any major investments in new hardware. "I was prepared to consider possibly upgrading to a new server, but not much more than that."

The Heads Tractor team looked at a number of popular accounting and management solutions in the South African market. De Wet says the team wanted to get the benefits of the latest technology without compromising the secure support that only established companies can provide: "From our own IT industry experience, we understand the value of a business system that has a good client base and offers sustainable support. But, we also know that the bigger the system and the bigger the client base, the more tied that software is to its legacy. It cannot leapfrog itself to take advantage of new technologies because of the need to support existing and long-standing clients."

We used to be a small business. A year from now, with the systems in place to unlock new potential, we'll be a large business.

Growing

From that point of view, says De Wet, HansaWorld was a perfect choice, offering superb new technology as well as the security of an internationally established company with a strong track record.

De Wet was also impressed with HansaWorld's flexibility when it came to customisation: "They way they support our personal enhancements is absolutely unique and flawless, and it doesn't compromise future upgrades."

Finally, says De Wet, he was impressed by the sales package on offer. "We're a small business and cash flow is really important, so to have a 24-month finance arrangement was really convincing. Add to that a far, far better professional sales approach than anything the competition had to offer, and it was just too sweet to resist. We investigated eight suppliers of similar systems and only with HansaWorld did we have a truly pleasant experience."

Heads Tractor went live with a 10-user version of HansaWorld Express in November 2006. Three months later, De Wet confirmed that "performance has been absolutely fantastic".

When it came to new hardware requirements, De Wet had his expectations confirmed: "We've only put in a new Pentium 4 PC as our server, and that's it. It's been absolutely surprising how light on the infrastructure this system is. It's exactly what a small business is looking for - you don't want to save money on the software and then spend more on the hardware because the software needs to cope with hidden legacy elements."

As for the implementation process itself, says De Wet, "we were 100% on plan and on budget, which you don't often see. That's partly because the whole package is so light on the platform and easy to implement, you aren't too dependent on professional resources."

Having achieved its first goals, the Heads Tractor team is now testing its first customisations and looking forward to enjoying the fruits of an open system.

"HansaWorld has created whole new opportunities for our business," says De Wet. "Previously we hadn't done much business outside Tshwane and Gauteng, now we already have a rep on the road in KwaZulu-Natal with a laptop and a 3G card, logging onto HansaWorld through a virtual private network. That was never possible before. HansaWorld has given us a much greater geographic reach and the ability to spread our wings."