Our part-time IT director helped this jewellery manufacturer in implementing a complete digital infrastructure overhaul, allowing them to focus on expansion and plan for the future

Company Profile 

Trading for almost 100 years, this manufacturer sells bespoke fine diamond jewellery to a global B2B market.   

CEO’s Mission 

Over the last five years, the company experienced several internal and external business challenges. This has lead to missed opportunities for growth and cost-saving efficiencies.  

With minimal investment in their digital infrastructure, the CEO understood that digital transformation was the key to the success of the company’s ambitious growth plan.  

The mission, therefore, was to review and modernise the digital infrastructure to help justify further investment. This would underpin a more robust business plan, and secure its future while also venturing into a B2C model.  

CIO’s Objectives  

  • Work closely with the CEO to understand the business at a macro and micro level to identify opportunities and solutions for digital transformation.  
  • Look for any R&D opportunities or off-the-shelf innovations to help leverage internal and external market advantages.  
  • Act as a CTO to create and deliver a digital transformation plan encompassing all aspects of the business.
  • Use technology platforms and insight-led data to restructure processes, systems, and communications to allow scalability.
  • Develop the technology strategy to enable expansion into the direct-to-consumer market and help to secure the investment needed for planned growth.  

What the Director Did 

Delivered a Complete Digital Infrastructure Overhaul 

The IT Director the internal manufacturing ERP to identify areas of strength and weakness. Highlighted weaknesses in the current ERP for time management and its impact on measuring true cost and profit along with delivery deadlines. 

Then, the Director began assessing, planning and implementing the transfer of the existing ERP to a cloud-based platform. Finally, they followed the same process for Microsoft Office 365 suite. This included:

  • Firstly, migrating the existing mail platform and configure items like shared mailboxes 
  • Implementing productivity tools such as Microsoft Bookings and Teams 
  • Then, deploying Microsoft Sharing solution using SharePoint and OneDrive 
  • Finally, using Microsoft 365 AI, Power Automate/Power Apps, alongside 3rd party connectors to automate accounts reconciliation. 

After finalising these steps, the Director then moved on to installing custom-built time management apps (using Office 365 Power Apps) to restructure the quotation process and optimise for better capacity planning within the workshops. 

Finally, they reviewed options for software selection and deployed a new sales CRM, which allowed for an automated start-to-end customer journey this enabled frictionless communication at scale. It also included Office 365 integration with a software solution, giving better sales forecasting capabilities and lead scores based on user behaviour analytics.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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