Missing orders and unforeseen delays are practically a thing of the past for musical instrument distributor, the Sutherland Trading Company now that it has broadband ADSL. Thanks to ADSL, Sutherland is able to check stock as well as place and keep track of orders in real time, thereby offering its customers a better quality service.
The Sutherland Trading Company is an independent distributor of musical instruments from cellos to penny whistles, based in Caerphilly, Wales. The company distributes well-known brands such as Hohner, Sonor, Crafter, Fernandes, Countryman and Dean Markley to musical instrument outlets and dealers throughout the UK and Ireland. It employs 35 staff - 31 based in the Caerphilly office, two working at a site in Exeter and two sales people who work from home.
All stock for distribution comes from overseas sources - Japan, Korea, Germany, USA and others, which means that there are long lead times when ordering from suppliers. As a result it is imperative that Sutherland is able to keep in touch with its suppliers and track orders to ensure they do not go astray, or get held up for any reason.
Email is the simplest and cheapest way for Sutherland to do this, but the company's existing dial-up Internet connection was insufficient for this purpose due to lack of bandwidth and slow download speeds.
Sutherland MD, Gareth Jones examined his business requirements and realised that he needed to find a solution that allowed staff to communicate in real time with overseas suppliers.
"Our business is fully dependent on us receiving the correct orders in a timely fashion. Any delay is passed on to our customers, which can be detrimental for business," said Gareth Jones.
Gareth Jones engaged the services of a consultant to find the best access solution for the company. Each employee had access to the Internet and email from their PC using dial-up over a BT line. The cost of using dial-up was not such an issue for the company as it subscribed to a flat rate service which allowed staff to stay online for unlimited lengths of time.
The consultant presented Sutherland with a number of broadband options. Sutherland chose BT
OpenWorld ADSL service to provide access for all employees at the Caerphilly and Exeter sites, and to link up the two sites using a local area network (LAN) over broadband.
BT Wholesale's ADSL service offers Sutherland 'always on' connectivity as speeds of up to 40 times faster than standard dial-up.
Ordering and installing the ADSL service was simple and stress-free. BT Wholesale had to check that Sutherland's two sites were within reach of an ADSL-enabled exchange. Once this was confirmed, Sutherland's existing phone lines were checked to ensure ADSL suitability. When the all clear was given and the order placed, BT engineers installed the service within 10 days.
Gareth Jones commented, "The installation was hassle-free and there was no disruption to business nor to our Internet or email access. We migrated from dial-up to ADSL on the same day and were immediately impressed with the service."
Sutherland employees at both the Caerphilly and Exeter sites are now able to reap the benefits of an 'always on', high-speed service. Communication and data sharing between the two sites is now much more streamlined thanks to the high bandwidth connection allowing instant downloading of emails and the LAN allowing files and data to be held centrally and accessed by staff in both sites.
Furthermore, order placing and tracking has been greatly improved now that staff are able to download large stock check files and keep in touch with suppliers on a real time basis, without having to wait while their modems dial-up. This in turn has enabled Sutherland to provide a better quality of service to its clients, as it is now able to confirm stock availability and delivery dates almost instantly.
Gareth Jones has not yet conducted a full cost comparison between the old dial-up service and the new ADSL service, but as more than one person can be connected to ADSL over a single BT line, there have been some significant cost savings resulting from the termination of superfluous lines.
Gareth Jones concluded, "It wasn't until we replaced our old dial-up service with ADSL that we realised how time-consuming and slow it was. Now we have broadband, we could never go back to dial-up."