technologyreseller.co.uk 15 INTERVIEW Having the designation of Official Business Management Software Supplier for a highprofile sports organisation like Millwall FC will help greatly in promoting this, and we look forward to becoming the supplier of choice for football teams looking to upgrade their legacy systems. TR: Where is business proving most difficult? DL: One of the biggest challenges we’re facing is the skills shortage in our industry. We sell complex solutions that require significant training and upskilling, taking both time and investment. Luckily, investing time and resources into training is a founding part of Eureka Solutions’ culture. Bringing new graduates into the business, training them and nurturing their careers is something we’ve always believed in. I myself started as a graduate and benefitted from this belief. I think this has helped maintain a low staff turnover and is why we have so many people of such long tenure. TR: How have you changed/are you changing business operations to exploit new opportunities? DL: With the addition of a third finance/ ERP product to our portfolio, we now view ourselves more as solutions consultants who are able to understand our customers’ problems and can guide them towards the best product to fit their individual needs. This has meant restructuring our sales team away from a product-centric way of working and instead looking at what problems the system is trying to solve and making recommendations based on that. TR: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing channel businesses today? DL: A key challenge is differentiation. Before COVID, location was a significant factor; customers often chose channel partners based on proximity, usually with a preference for someone local. Now that services can be fully remote, location is less of a barrier. While this opens up opportunities to expand into new regions, it does make standing out from the competition more difficult. Here at Eureka Solutions, we differentiate through our long-standing reputation for technical expertise and excellent customer service, and we remain fans of a face-to-face meeting no matter where our customer is located! TR: Could vendors and distributors do more to help overcome these challenges? And if so, what? DL: Vendors could do more to help by gaining a better understanding of each partner’s competitive advantage. Some partners excel in certain areas more than others, and if vendors were to direct leads towards the partners with the most relevant expertise, it would increase the chances of a successful sale. By aligning leads with the partners best suited to meet customers’ needs, both vendors and partners would benefit. The customer would receive a better experience by working with a partner who has the right knowledge, likely resulting in a longer-term customer relationship. It would create more win-win situations for everyone involved. TR: Are customers becoming more demanding, and if so, in what ways? DL: I wouldn’t say customers are becoming more demanding, but they are certainly becoming more knowledgeable and discerning. By the time they’re ready to choose a channel partner, they’ve often already done their research – they understand the product options, why they need a solution and how it will benefit their business. This is a positive shift because it allows us to take a more consultative approach and focus on guiding them to the right solution. TR: If you could change one aspect of your job, what would it be and why? DL: It’s hard to pick one aspect of my job that I would change because I’ve had the privilege of growing within the business from a graduate to CEO alongside a fantastic team. If anything, I sometimes miss the more technical side of my previous roles, like being involved in scoping calls and solving complex engineering problems. We’ve built a strong leadership team that allows me to delegate responsibilities so I can focus more on the big picture, but I do stay connected by meeting clients and keeping a hand in on the technical side. New signing to boost Millwall FC performance Millwall FC is aiming to streamline its financial operations after appointing Eureka Solutions as the club’s Official Business Management Software Supplier. Eureka Solutions already counts Luton Town, Derby County and Heart of Midlothian football clubs Juddmonte and the R&A as customers, as well as the St Andrews Links Trust, which earlier this year reported record earnings of £43.8m. Its implementation of Oracle NetSuite ERP at Millwall FC will transform the club’s ability to track and manage every aspect of its financial performance, including revenue streams such as season ticket sales, hospitality packages, catering and sponsorship, which in many organisations are still managed in separate systems. Emma Parker, Chief Finance Officer at the Championship club, said: “A lot of our analysis is done on spreadsheets because we haven’t had a proper system in place, which makes reporting very clunky. We also spend far too much time producing reports that become outdated by the time of presentation due to the fast-paced industry we are in. I wanted an end-to‑end system that could take care of invoice processing, expense processing and real-time reporting, and NetSuite will be able to do this.” She added: “I report regularly to our board of directors on the financial status of the club. Rather than creating a presentation using six-week-old data, I will be able to provide a dashboard showing the things they need to know, such as how many shirts or beers we sold at the weekend. The ability to provide up-to-date financials on key elements of the club will let us direct resources to areas that most need attention.”
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