Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
RKW ltd, Europe’s leading distributor and manufacturer of small domestic appliances and housewares, has seen rapid growth since its founding in 1989. It is home to over 40 leading brands including Tower Black & Decker, Breville, Hoover, Morphy Richards, Swan and Smeg. As part of its long-term future growth plans, the company has committed to substantial investment into its software and hardware infrastructure.
To achieve these goals, the family business identified the need to embark on a Digital Transformation project and approached Microsoft Gold Partner HSO to facilitate this venture spanning across both business systems and processes.
Rob Sutton, MD & co-founder of RKW Ltd, said: “The business software transformation project is one of the most exciting investments we’ve ever put into our business.”
“The new Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform implemented by HSO will elevate our company to another level and help us to keep up with the ambitious plans we have for the future.”
Before the full business transformation project, RKW were already utilising apps from the Microsoft suite including Power Platform and Microsoft Teams, but they wanted to grow a solid business foundation that will allow them to use the rest of the Microsoft Platform to their advantage. RKW selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 to help them reduce development times from weeks and months, to just hours, so they can take advantage of these time efficiencies to further bolster their fast-paced product development roadmap.
Tony Westwater, Group IT Director, added: “It’s important that the core ERP business system stays that way, and is as close to the standard product as possible. However, we still want the flexibility around the edge and the Microsoft Dynamics 365 application gives us just that, with Power Apps, Power Automate and Power BI, giving us the capability to build new applications in super quick time”. He continued, “Having real-time, accurate data is a top priority for us and needs to be at the heart of the business so that we can make decisions fast and thrive.”
“RKW selected HSO because they displayed an in-depth understanding and engaged with the business well. We were extremely impressed with the people we have worked with from the start.”
“We undertook an Enterprise Architecture exercise in the first instance with HSO, which was considerably eye-opening. It highlighted the processes currently in operation, and uncovered new ways of working, where we should consider making changes, and highlighted improvements plus the results that could be obtained. A fantastic way to start.”
Westwater added: “HSO really understood and challenged the “norm” for our business. By pushing ourselves, and with help from HSO experts, we can now see a roadmap to build the business for the next 10-20+ years using Microsoft Dynamics 365.”
“The workforce at RKW is now exceptionally excited about the new way of working, change can be very intimidating, and we know the importance of involving every single member of staff in the project. Every member of our workforce will play a vital part in the business development and transformation. This is not an IT project, it’s a business project.”
