Paydens Limited – The Solus Partnership
To rank amongst the UK’s largest independent pharmaceutical wholesalers, with a large retail pharmacy division, you have to know something about keeping customers happy, service levels high and costs down. Founded in 1969, Paydens Limited has established an unrivaled reputation for providing communities with a professional efficient pharmacy service that offers advice on health issues management, including medicine management, and works alongside other health professionals to maximize the benefit of care in the community. Paydens includes in its business portfolio a thriving pharmaceutical wholesale division, a retail pharmacy division, post offices, book shops, Spar shops, an Internet division and 3 nursing clinics in the South East of England.
The business issues
Paydens was experiencing continuous and steady growth as it expanded its operations taking on new retail outlets, increasing its permanent and temporary staff and adding to its extensive range of services. Early in 2004, this combination of market growth and success became the drivers for Paydens to reassess its financial, payroll and HR systems and embark on a project to modernize the operations thereby enabling them to manage current growth while providing the capacity to scale for future growth.
Joanne Pay is head of property at Paydens and together with an independent IT consultancy, Western Consulting, and key personnel from the Paydens finance team, she led a project to identify an HR, financial and payroll system that would underpin the growth of the company. Joanne and the team were aware of the complexities that lay ahead. Selecting one supplier can be tricky enough, but 3 suppliers could be a nightmare!
The Solus Partnership
The team scoped a detailed needs analysis that identified a list of criteria against which they ranked a number of potential suppliers. Following a comprehensive look at the market which rejected financial suppliers including Open Accounts, Sun Systems and Exchequer, Paydens awarded their business to the combined best of breed proposal from The Solus Partnership.
The Solus Partnership is a consortium of accounting and HR software and services companies with a wealth of experience and significant market share in their respective technologies. The founding companies work together with a common aim to seamlessly manage and deliver integrated Financial and HR business solutions.
Paydens selected key solutions from the Solus Partnership to satisfy their requirement; Financials from PS Financials, HR from Infosupport, Payroll from Rutherford Webb and infrastructure and support services from ESG Technical Services.
The project, which was driven by the Finance function, was managed by PS Financials as the accounts system modernization was the key project initiative. PS Financials took the lead on project management and liaised with the other Solus Partnership suppliers to reduce delays, communications errors and integration issues and costs.
Paydens recruited the help of Solus Partnership IT services company, ESG Technical Services, to advise on the hardware and communications infrastructure to support the new systems. Then under the watchful eye of the finance team, who drove the change management and process implementation, they embarked on an ambitious project to implement the three systems in a 3-4 month timescale. Looking back on the project Joanne said:
“Although we had contracted systems and services from four suppliers we only had to manage one relationship and that was with the project manager, PS Financials.”
“This single project management approach meant a significant reduction in meeting time, reduced project costs, fewer misunderstandings and communications errors and faster decision making. It operated very smoothly and we always felt in control of the project and the speed with which it was implemented. The Solus Partnership delivered an ambitious IT project on time and to budget.”
In September 2004 Paydens went live on the new systems.
“We are only just beginning to realize the real potential of our Financials, HR and Payroll systems. We can now look forward to increased efficiency, productivity and accuracy in managing our businesses. We have an integrated solution to manage our staff, temporary and permanent and our locum pharmacists are now embraced as an essential part of our retail business. It is early days, but we hope to see improvements in operational efficiency and increased accuracy in our information handling. Most importantly, The Solus Partnership has enabled us to protect our future with a major IT investment that will deliver increased visibility across our businesses.”
What is The Solus Partnership?
The combined Financials, HR and Payroll solutions implemented at Paydens was delivered by The Solus Partnership and project managed by one of its founding members, PS Financials. The Solus Partnership is a consortium of accounting and HR solutions and services companies with a wealth of experience and significant market share in their respective technologies who work together with a common aim to seamlessly manage and deliver integrated business solutions. The founding members of the Solus Partnership are InfoSupport, PS Financials, Rutherford Webb, e-learning WMB and ESG Technical Services.