kikki.K Shares Information Between Employees (Part 3)
By utilising Small Business Server 2003’s ‘SharePoint Service’, kikki.K General Manager, Paul Lacy, saves some serious time by transforming manual activities into online work spaces that can be accessed by both store employees and senior management - via the Web.
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By Keir Wells
About kikki.K
Founded in 1999 by Kristina “Kikki” Karlson, kikki.K – Swedish Home/Office Style – has been acclaimed widely in the Australian media as one of this country’s great small business success stories. The company designs, produces and sells a unique range of home and office stationery products and gifts through its three stores in Melbourne and Sydney and its e-commerce enabled web site – www.kikki-k.com.au.
The Story So Far…
In 2003, kikki.K’s General Manager, Paul Lacy, made the decision to replace the company’s entire IT infrastructure with a modern network featuring tools and applications designed to meet the needs of small business. In partnership with Melbourne-based IT integrator, itro, a new server, notebook, PCs and other equipment were brought in and set up to run under a Microsoft Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 environment.
Discovering SharePoint
SharePoint is a feature of SBS 2003 that helps you store collective knowledge in the one place - online. Just like an in-house website it helps everyone stay in the loop by sharing files, attending meetings, storing documents and working together on tasks, in a secure online location.
One of the earliest projects Paul undertook to explore the business benefits of the new network was the use of a SharePoint Services intranet for an online staff roster. Paul’s early use of SharePoint led him to review other kikki.K manual processes and examine how they too could be streamlined and enhanced. “The online roster showed me pretty clearly how the intranet could save me time and make information more easily accessible right across the company,” he said. “My goal was – and is – to use this new technology and get it doing things that help me manage the company, give Kristina more time to concentrate on product lines, and ensure our team members have the information and tools they need to do their jobs… even better!”
An Immediate Way to Track Sales
As kikki.K’s General Manager, a daily requirement for Paul is tracking the sales figures of each store. Typically, the sales figures would be entered into an Excel spreadsheet from a printed report generated by the retail accounting system. Once the data has been entered, Paul is able to create charts and reports that provide him with up-to-date views of each store’s sales vs. targets performance.
“When we had just the one store, it wasn’t so bad. Now with three stores it’s becoming a daily grind. Given that we have plans to grow to around 20 stores, it was a system destined to become a nightmare,” Paul states.
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Result: “I wanted to keep using the Excel spreadsheet, primarily because I had it set up to do automatic calculations and graphing,” Paul explains. “The first idea I had was to send out a copy of the spreadsheet to each of the store managers and have them update it and send back to me. This had too many required steps, introduced the problem of poor version control and would still need me to spend time consolidating figures rather than working with them. Instead, I set up a new document library in SharePoint where the managers can access a single worksheet.”
“All that’s needed then is for the manager to click on the file name in the list – and this is from within their Web browser – which automatically opens the file and they enter their store’s daily sales figures. For me, I can see at a glance which of the stores hasn’t yet entered their figures, then call the manager and give a gentle reminder.”
“Already, with the three stores, this is saving me around an hour a day. As the number of stores grows, though, it’s going to mean a saving of almost a full day a week. Most importantly, instead of entering in the data, I’m able to open a single, up-to-date worksheet, examine sales figures and identify sales-related issues before they become problems – which is what I’m meant to be doing!”
Benefits:
| • | Sharing the burden of data entry by SharePoint-enabling sales worksheets. |
| • | Ensuring every store manager is able to see daily sales vs. target results. |
| • | Reduced administration of approximately one hour a day. |
Future Plans: The document library feature in SharePoint is set to figure prominently in kikki.K’s ability to establish and enforce a standard set of policies and procedures. Paul is currently developing a set of documents in Microsoft Word that outline procedures such as IT problem resolution and escalation, safety and customer service guidelines. By using SBS 2003’s SharePoint Services and Word in combination, Paul says that he is able to create, “Living, breathing documents that can be accessed right across the company and help everyone in their jobs.”
Capturing Bright Ideas in the One Place
One of the many reasons behind kikki.K’s success over the years has been Kristina’s practice of refining the company’s product lines from suggestions and comments given by customers, which were noted down in an exercise book by store staff.
“Every couple of weeks Kristina would take the books and pore over them for ideas for new lines or even slightly modifying existing products,” Paul says. “The major problem with this was that while store staff members need the books always on hand, so does Kristina – and obviously they couldn’t be in two places at the same time.”
Result: Having already explored the concept of shared information with SBS 2003’s SharePoint Services, Paul set out to create an online ideas book. “All I had to do was create a new list in SharePoint and modify it to accept the information I wanted our staff to enter – almost exactly the same as ruling up columns in an exercise book and giving each a heading,” he said. “I suppose the whole process took me around half-an-hour…at the most.”
With the new ideas list now online, kikki.K store staff can add customer comments and suggestions to the list from their store PC’s web browser. If the staff member believes the idea is of particular merit and should be given immediate attention by Kristina, they can assign it a high priority using a dropdown list created by Paul during the list’s set-up. An e-mail is automatically sent to Kristina once a week advising her that the list has been updated; and the best new product idea submitted in this way wins a prize.
“A great thing about this system is that regardless of Kristina’s schedule, everything in the list is available from her browser,” Paul says. “There’s no more getting the books in from the store and going over them when she can find the time. It’s now a case of the system working for Kristina rather than Kristina finding time to work with the system.”
Benefits:
| • | More effective tracking of customer needs and preferences. |
| • | Central point for noting and viewing new product suggestions. |
| • | Ability to receive immediate e-mail notification of new product suggestions added to the list. |
| • | An online solution that retains its ease-of-use regardless of the number of stores. |
Future Plans: With kikki.K having grown from one to three stores in less than 12 months – a growth rate Paul intends to see continue – he and Kristina are increasingly time-poor. To improve their time management, Paul is examining other ways in which SharePoint can be used to streamline information flow between the stores and head office.
Next: In part four, Paul takes advantage of the various security and reporting features within SBS 2003. His goal is to examine ways in which, even as a non-technical business manager, he can easily manage the performance and security of the new all-important small business network.
Partner details:
Itro
Microsoft Certified Partner
Ph +61 3 9421 5955
www.itro.com.au
More information:
Customer profile: kikki.K design, produce and sell designer stationery and gifts.
Business Situation: kikki.K has grown from one store to three stores in two states in the last 12-months, which created significant strain on existing IT systems. In addition, the principles travel extensively and sought a solution that keeps them stay in touch with the business even when interstate and overseas.
Solution: Implemented Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 (SBS 2003)
Part 1: Supporting growth using a server
Part 2: The business goes mobile
Part 3: Sharing data between staff and stores
Part 4: Do-it-yourself server administration
About this Case Study: This is part one of a four-part case study series highlighting kikki.K’s experiences, challenges and benefits in transforming a haphazard IT environment to one that supports a growing and vital small business.
The kikki.K IT overhaul is a project partially sponsored by Microsoft Australia. Its goal is to demonstrate proof-of-concept of the significant business benefits afforded a typical small business by its migration to a network based on Microsoft small business operating systems and applications.
Retail costs* for the project to date:
| • | Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 (Standard Edition) |
| • | Microsoft Windows XP |
| • | Microsoft Office Professional 2003 |
| • | Server (Including UPS, Tape Backup & monitor) |
| • | Network switch |
| • | Two personal computers |
| • | Notebook computer |
*Cost at time of purchase.
Small Business Server 2003 R2 available now! Read about the latest release of Microsoft’s award-winning server software.
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