Commitment to Success with iMetal Aids Business Growth for B&M

Barclay & Mathieson are one of the UK’s largest and most successful independent stockholding and service centre businesses, operating from 14 locations across the length and breadth of Britain.

As well as their unequalled stock range of general steel products, B&M also offer processing facilities from sawing and shearing, to profiling and fabrication.

In addition to a successful General Steels arm, B&M have business units devoted to the specification, design and supply of Architectural and Glazing Systems to the construction industry, and specialised Steel Access and Safety products, such as handrailing and flooring.

With a client base from Multinational Construction and Engineering businesses to the DIY enthusiast, and calling on their 130 years of experience, B&M provide an astonishing range of materials and services for the same or next day delivery.

Barclay & Mathieson were already a highly successful business prior to de-merging from a global parent group during 2015, but one of the many challenges the management team had to deal with during the de-merging process, was the need to implement new communications, network infrastructure and information systems from scratch – and if that wasn’t a big enough task – it had to be up and running within a 3 to 6 month period.

After an exhaustive review of system providers to the distribution and processing industry, both within and without the metals sector, Barclay & Mathieson chose Metalogic’s iMetal system as the only offering able to fulfil the needs of the diversity of products, processes and business models Barclay & Mathieson presented.

Andrew Telfer, Financial Controller, observed “Replacing an over-complicated global IT System on such a short timescale, iMetal needed to be a very good fit for our business ‘out of the box’ – we were changing email systems, networks and hardware all at the same time, so we needed a system that would integrate with everything else we were doing, seamlessly and with no hassles”.

Whilst the main goal of the implementation was to roll out a system across the 14 sites and to over 120 users, which would support all of the diverse activities of B & M, it was also essential to maintain the high levels of service that B&M’s customer base have come to expect and rely on.

The system would also need to support and facilitate the growth of the newly-independent business while allowing the new management team to maintain a high level of control.

“It was clear from the start,” says Alastair MacPhie, B&M Finance Director, “that the implementation would not succeed unless we had a well thought out plan, and would be prepared to carry it through to completion”.

Planning

Key to the planning process were regular and frequent project planning review sessions, involving B&M ‘Core Team’ members, the Metalogic Project Team and other Project Stakeholders.  Remote conferencing technology was used extensively to allow these meetings to take place between participants from right across the UK, without wasteful travel time, allowing the B&M Management Team to stay close to the business at all times.

Following a thorough review of Barclay & Mathieson’s business processes and a short but intensive period of Workshops and Core Team Training, Metalogic delivered full training to ALL users across all sites over a comparatively short period of time.

Four Metalogic consultants were on site delivering 1 week blocks of training, followed up by  supervised practice sessions overseen by local management.

Implementation

The implementation was, as is always the case, a period of hard work by management and staff alike “Getting used to a new system was tough; there was so much to learn, but as you get more familiar with it, it all falls into place” said Susan Watts, Sheffield Sales.  However a solid commitment to success was to the fore, and everyone involved was always willing to put the effort in to making the project fly.

The importance of good planning and maintaining a clear focus on delivery of the plan supported the whole process, and along with the ability of the B&M Management Team to make prompt and effective decisions and carry through the project with determination, iMetal went live on time, on budget and on plan.

The benefits of iMetal to the business as a whole were evident from day one.  Jean-Pierre Lajarige, head of the Architectural Division  “iMetal has improved efficiency and communications across the Group – from access to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) through to Transport Planning, the sharing of information has improved the service we provide to our Clients, and improved stock traceability and the automated retrieval of test certificates has made a huge difference to how we work as a business.”

And Susan Watts again  “Being able to create Sales Quotes quickly, convert them to orders easily, and being able to use Order Templates have speeded up sales, and improved the way we deal with our customers a lot”.

6 months on from ‘Go Live’, all of the goals set at the start of the implementation are achieved – Barclay & Mathieson have never stopped delivering a first class service to their customers right across the country, and the Management Team have the tools to grow the business.

Metalogic welcome customers to Wasps for second season

Following an amazing first venture into the world of sports sponsorship with the Aviva Premiership club Wasps – Metalogic are pleased to be repeating the experience once more.

Wasps, who have been named as one of the fastest growing companies in the Coventry & Warwickshire region, had an awesome 2016/17 season which saw them come excruciatingly close to winning the title with only 3 points between them and the season winners Exeter earlier this year.

Last season’s sponsorship of Irish International Marty Moore was part of the relationship building process to support Metalogic’s interest in the Irish Republic market. Marty Moore’s journey with Wasps was followed closely by Metalogic as they were delighted to host over 64 customers across 16 fixtures where they enjoyed Premiership Hospitality in the Premier Lounge at the Ricoh Arena whilst witnessing some first class rugby.

This season Metalogic will be sponsoring Marcus Watson who will be looking to make his mark on Wasps after his first taste of competitive action in a black and yellow shirt earlier this month when he helped the team to victory in the Singha Premiership Rugby 7s.  New Wasp Marcus spent three years playing for the England 7s side and also helped Great Britain win a silver medal in last year’s Olympic Games in Rio.

As with last season part of the sponsorship package means that Metalogic will carry their company logo on Watson’s Wasps website profile page and across other marketing collateral relating to the player and Wasps rugby club.

And once again Metalogic are looking to welcome customers to Premier Club at the Ricoh Arena to see their newly sponsored player in action whilst enjoying some first-class hospitality.

iMetal sees Unprecedented Growth

Since it’s launch iMetal has seen unprecedented growth in the marketplace with new and existing customers taking advantage of the cost savings and productivity benefits the system brings.

iMetal is a multi-metals product and as such has been implemented this year across the non ferrous flat rolled and general steels sectors with over ten new clients plus a number of upgrades taking place already

Two significant implementations in the aluminium sector have been Kent based Dore Metals and LA Metals in the West Midlands.  Both companies have experienced growth in the sector and with it the need to implement a system that would allow them to continue to expand and improve productivity.

Look out for future case studies to understand how iMetal is improving productivity for our customer base.

NEW FUNCTIONALITY

Whilst the customer base have had for a number of months the ability to view enhanced functionality through the links in their website Metalogic have decided to showcase to a wider audience the new and enhanced features available in the latest releases of iMetal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE6WSX4jVw4

iMetal enters the Republic of Ireland

Following the success of a recent mailing to steel stockholders in the Republic of Ireland Metalogic have now received their first order for iMetal.

D Kennedy Steel Supplies Ltd are one of Ireland’s leading steel stockholders and have been servicing the steel industry since 1983. Recent growth means they are looking to streamline their operations and will be implementing systems to assist with cutting optimization, management of fabricated parts, document and test certificate management, counter sales, plus the integrated CRM and quality systems.

Senior Consultant Geoff Kendell will be working with D Kennedy’s and is looking forward to getting them live and settled on their new system in the coming months.

Raising Funds The Pennine Way!

On Friday 4th August, Metalogic’s John Padbury headed off on an adventure,  along with a few friends he spent this particular week of annual leave running The Pennine Way!

Steeped in history, this National Trail chases along the mountain tops along the rugged backbone of England and offers 268 miles of the finest upland walking in England. Starting in Edale and finishing on 11th August in Yetholm, in the Scottish Borders, this is a common challenge for walkers, but these guys were running it!

Running over 8 days with distances between 27 to 36 miles per day and climbing along ‘The Spine Of Britain’ the team had a mother and son support crew to keep them fed, watered and safe along their way.

But it wasn’t just for fun(?!) the team were also hoping to raise a few bob to support Cancer Research UK.

Cancer is happening right now and effects so many, friends, family and loved ones… Knowing folks have given their support certainly helped John and his merry group through those tired moments, when they started to wonder to themselves  “Why are we doing this ?”

The group saw some pretty inclement weather…heavy rain, winds and sleet at times, plenty of mud and boggy puddles too!

John Padbury  ‘Just to provide a little update, we got pretty damn close to completing the trail but had to stop on day eight due to safety. Injury had hit my running buddies and I would be running the last day, 28 to 30 miles over the Cheviots, on my own without any reliable communication, no access to the support crew due to terrain and bad weather had closed in.  It was a tough decision but definitely the right one. It’s been an amazing experience and I’m so grateful that I could be part of it, personally covering 227 miles from Edale to Byrness in 7 days.  I’ll be back to finish it off!  

John continued ‘I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for the donations supporting our little run along the Pennine Way and raising a few bob along the way.  The donations were a great support and help when the stages got tough, thank you so much. We have raised over £2,000 for Cancer Research and the figure is still rising.’

If you would like to add your support to this wonderful fundraising effort you can donate through JustGiving.*

*Simple, fast and totally secure your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Latest news from AIIS shows a 25% swell in steel exports from 2016

The latest release from the AIIS show steel exports swell 17.3 percent from April to May – and were up 25.2 percent from a year earlier – to surpass 1 million net tons.

More than half of the 1,006,088 net tons of exports in May – 572,068 net tons – were sent to Canada. This total was 31.7 percent more than in April and 38 percent more than in May 2016. Monthly exports to Mexico, though, dipped 3.7 percent from the previous month, to 321,435 net tons, which was 5.5 percent higher than a year earlier. The European Union took in 40,907 net tons of steel from the United States in May, which was 57.8 percent more than in April and 62.2 percent more than in the previous May.

From January to May, total steel exports increased 13.3 percent to 4.46 million net tons. This included 2.26 million net tons of exports to Canada (12.2 percent higher than the total during the same time last year), 1.7 million net tons to Mexico (14 percent higher), and 157,368 net tons to the European Union (56.1 percent higher).

With both imports and exports rising by double digits through the first five months of the year, it is clear that this is not a zero-sum game, that domestic manufacturers can do very well even as the nation relies partly on imports for its steel needs. In addition, the capability utilization rate of domestic mills has risen by more than 2 percentage points this year to 74.5 percent, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, further illustrating the health of American steel companies. As the Department of Commerce continues its Section 232 investigation of the potential impact of steel imports on national security, it would do well to take note of how much stronger U.S. firms have become even as imports have increased to meet the demands of a growing economy.

First released 27th July 2017 AIIS

British SME given £60,000 cyber attack Fine for ‘basic’ failings

If your company has failed to implement basic cyber security, and your website takes a hit, then the Information Commissioner’s Office can hand you a cyber-attack fine.

Cyber security has been a prevalent subject of late. But while experts have warned that SMEs are ill-prepared, many may not have been listening – until one SME was handed a cyber attack fine.

The company in question, Boomerang Video, allows customers to rent video games online, payable through a web application. It was the victim of cyber crime in 2014, which saw the details of 26,331 customers accessed.

On the surface, the attack didn’t differ too much from those on larger companies throughout the year. Wonga’s data breach affected almost 250,000 customers, some 26,000 customers got a raw deal after a Debenhams Flowers hack and the ABTA, an association for travel operators, saw the personal details of 43,000 people unveiled.

While all have been admonished in some way, mostly for not letting customers know about the breach straight away, Boomerang was handed a cyber attack fine of £60,000 – not something you expect to be given after someone hacks your website. But there’s a reason why.

Now, more than ever, with GDPR on the horizon, companies handling personal data need to take appropriate steps in cyber security.

According to Sally Poole, enforcement manager at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): “Boomerang failed to take basic steps to protect its customers’ information from cyber attackers. Had it done so, it could have prevented this attack.”

Indeed, the ICO found that Boomerang’s website had been created by a third party, with the company unaware there was a coding error on the login page. This error was exploited by a SQL injection, which the hacker essentially used to gain access to staff usernames and passwords for the WordPress section of the site.

The ICO exclaimed: “One password was a simple dictionary word based on the company’s name. The attacker then uploaded a malicious web shell onto the server to gain access to personal data such as names, addresses, primary account numbers, expiry dates and security codes – and while some were encrypted, the attacker used a decryption key with ease due to information stored in configuration files on the server.

“Industry guidelines prohibit the storage of the security code after payment authorisation. Boomerang failed to carry out regular penetration testing on its website, which should have detected the error. It also didn’t ensure the password for the WordPress account was sufficiently complex to be resistant to a brute-force attack.”

This, the ICO hopes, will serve as an example and remind bosses that no one is exempt from the law.

Poole explained: “Regardless of your size, if you are a business that handles personal information then failure to take responsibility will land you with a cyber attack fine. And with GDPR coming into force next year, a cyber attack fine could become a lot higher.”

Read here for more information on reducing your risks of cyber attack.

First published on Real Business

June 2017 crude steel production 3.2% increase on previous year

World crude steel production for the 67 countries reporting to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) was 141.0 million tonnes (Mt) in June 2017, a 3.2% increase compared to June 2016.

World crude steel production was 836.0 Mt in the first six months of 2017, up by 4.5% compared to the same period in 2016. Asia produced 576.8 Mt of crude steel, an increase of 4.8% over the first half of 2016. The EU produced 86.1 Mt of crude steel in the first half of 2017, up by 4.1% compared to the same period of 2016. North America’s crude steel production in the first six months of 2017 was 57.4 Mt, an increase of 2.4% compared to the first half of 2016. The C.I.S. produced 49.7 Mt of crude steel in the first six months of 2017, a decrease of -2.5% over the same months of 2016.

China’s crude steel production for June 2017 was 73.2 Mt, an increase of 5.7% compared to June 2016. Japan produced 8.4 Mt of crude steel in June 2017, a decrease of -4.3% compared to June 2016. South Korea produced 5.9 Mt of crude steel in June 2017, an increase of 7.7% compared to June 2016.

In the EU, Germany produced 3.6 Mt of crude steel in June 2017, a decrease of -1.7% compared to June 2016. Italy produced 2.1 Mt of crude steel, up by 1.8% on June 2016. France produced 1.3 Mt of crude steel, up by 1.3% compared to June 2016. Spain produced 1.3 Mt of crude steel, up by 8.1% on June 2016.

Turkey’s crude steel production for June 2017 was 3.0 Mt, up by 7.1% on June 2016.

The US produced 6.7 Mt of crude steel in June 2017, a decrease of -1.7% compared to June 2016.

Brazil’s crude steel production for June 2017 was 2.6 Mt, up by 4.0% on June 2016.

The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 67 countries in June 2017 was 73.0%. This is 1.4 percentage points higher than June 2016. Compared to May 2017, it is 1.3 percentage points higher.

• The World Steel Association (worldsteel) is one of the largest and most dynamic industry associations in the world. worldsteel members represent approximately 85% of the world’s steel production, including over 160 steel producers with 9 of the 10 largest steel companies, national and regional steel industry associations, and steel research institutes.
• The monthly crude steel capacity utilisation ratio is calculated based on crude steel production information available at worldsteel and OECD capacity estimates.