Original Style

Tiles to inspire

Original Style manufacture and sell a range of floor and wall tiles. With over 20,000 product lines, their most popular range is their Victorian floor tiles. They were established in 1986 and have since acquired further brands, and 7 showroom-style stores. Many sales are handled through a network of independent retailers.

In 2018, Original Style decided that they needed to move away from their Sage 1000 system, which seemed to be approaching 'end-of-life'. They chose Dynamics NAV, which gave them room to grow, and began an implementation project with another Partner. The timescales were tight and, whilst they rolled the solution out successfully in Europe, the key UK deployment did not go to plan. The go-live date had to be postponed twice and then their original Partner went into administration.

Original Style got busy online and quickly found TNP. Owen Philips, ICT Manager at Original Style, says, "we liked the depth of retail expertise that TNP were able to demonstrate – but more importantly we really liked their ethos – it just felt like a good fit. Successful projects require some common ground between organisations in terms of culture and TNP just spoke to me".

"We are absolutely convinced that we’ve got the right product and the right partner for taking us forward for the next 5-10 years"

Up and running

The summer of 2020 was spent re-evaluating the plans for Original Style’s project. TNP completed their 'Day in the Life' process, which gave both sides a chance to really get under the skin of the products capabilities and Original Style’s business needs. TNP’s project methodology reduces risk by providing users with a working model of what the end result will be. It’s born out of years of experience in implementing business systems in various specific areas such as retail.

The 'Day in the Life' engagement – and the subsequent project has been completed remotely, with neither side meeting in person! Owen says, "I can’t fault anyone. It’s not an easy thing to do something like this over Teams but it went better than I expected".

Toni Hamblett, Principal Engagement Manager, who’s been with TNP for over 4 years says, "it’s been a pleasure helping Original Style turn their project around. The decision to upgrade from NAV to Dynamics 365 Business Central during UAT was unusual – but absolutely the right decision. It has future proofed the solution".

Worth the journey

In the first 4-6 weeks since go-live, Original Style have taken over 10,000 sales orders on their new Business Central system. It will likely be their second busiest month of the pandemic, which is a huge achievement. Going forward, they hope to start a project to change and improve their POS system to better suit their needs.

Owen says, "we are absolutely convinced that we’ve got the right product and the right partner for taking us forward for the next 5-10 years".

Feedback like that sums up why we do what we do here at TNP.

Dynamics 365 Business Central could be just what you’re looking for, discover more here.

Find out why TNP are the best Partner for your ERP implementation project.

We are no strangers to remote implementations. Another pandemic success story came from working with H+H.