Background
Berkshire advertising gift distributor Healey Williams supplies a wide range of business and promotional gifts to corporate clients within the UK. The company, which employs 10 people, was founded in 1987 where it started in a small room with two partners, a desk, telephone and typewriter.

The Business Opportunity
With a typically blue-chip customer profile, particularly strong in the IT and Financial sectors, Healey Williams identified that business and promotional merchandise is often a last minute consideration for the marketing divisions of companies. Clients tend to be ill informed about the availability of products and the implications of branding with their logo. Furthermore, Healey Williams offered products and services beyond those outlined in their brochures. They wanted to communicate more effectively with their clients, and assist their clients in maintaining promotional or branding information and product databases.

The Solution
Healey Williams invested more than £50,000 to create a sales and order processing system called SalesForce, and in excess of £15,000 to develop their web site with online catalogues detailing their range of business and promotional gifts. They have taken this a step further and are now designing customised online catalogues for a number of corporate clients, showing the client's own branding on business gifts. Through the click of a button, their customers can have access to individual pictures of their range of products, descriptions, prices and the quantities held in stock for them. An automatic de-stocking facility also ensures that products cannot be ordered twice by different buyers from the same company. Healey Williams is currently in the process of creating a final link between their web site and SalesForce. This combined system will be able to provide customers with an even speedier and higher quality of service and will cut sales administration costs.

Success
Today Healey Williams is one of the first companies in the UK to offer a fully integrated online ordering service for business gifts. It has experienced increased sales in excess of £200,000 as a direct result of its ability to offer online catalogues for new and existing customers. The catalogue sites offer additional business benefits as they expose customer networks resulting in new business opportunities. The catalogue sites reduce costs as they replace printed literature and can be quickly and easily updated. Customised catalogues and the provision of full monthly management reports have removed a difficult and time-consuming task, whilst offering customers user-friendly access to their product range.

Year Overview

• The £5,000 winnings have been invested in an Apple Mac and software for the Graphics Department, to help customers visualise the products quickly and without the need for expensive pre-production proofs.
• An even more extensive online service has been planned and will be implemented in the very near future, including joint venture sites with some of Healey Williams' key suppliers.
• Increased web-based marketing has been achieved through the implementation of a comprehensive search engine registration service that has already resulted in significant enquiries from potential customers.

The Future
Healey Williams has exciting plans for the future with continuing plans for the provision of an even more extensive online service. Currently they are developing joint venture sites with some of their key suppliers, with the first sites being implemented in the very near future, and increasing their web-based marketing through the implementation of a comprehensive search engine registration service. In addition, plans are underway to have their full brochure online.

Advice for Other Companies
Nigel Williams, Senior Partner, said:
"Since we expanded our business by making use of e-commerce, we have learned the importance of being known as the first to implement an e-commerce solution in our industry. Many large companies, customers and suppliers are lagging behind in implementing everyday business technology. It is important to train employees on an ongoing basis and to firmly establish e-commerce as part of the company's ethos. The investment is big, both in time and money, but the potential benefits are huge."