The HBP Group

Over the past few years, Andel has experienced significant growth, doubling its workforce from around 40 employees to over 80, with plans to double the business again in the coming years. 

Working alongside their Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central solution, The HBP Group partnered with Andel to centralise its operations, ensuring seamless communication and data access across the company’s diverse functions. The IT systems implemented enabled:

• The reduction of time spent on administrative tasks allowing Andel to handle a larger volume of work, without a proportional increase in resources, estimated to be worth well over £1 million a year in gained efficiencies.
• A reduction in IT downtime, ensuring that operations run smoothly even when issues arise.
• Better collaboration and project management, ensuring that all team members are aligned and informed.
• An IT infrastructure that can scale with operations, positioning Andel to achieve its ambitious growth targets, worth millions of pounds in revenue to the business.

Shelley Stringer, HR & Admin Director at Andel Ltd, explained: “Without IT, it would be impossible to manage and connect all our projects and remote staff effectively. It’s become essential to our day-to-day operations.” 

GCH is a privately-owned, diversified conglomerate of SMEs, managing a portfolio of businesses in manufacturing and trading across the UK. With a turnover of approximately £130 million and around 800 employees, GCH is driven by a strategy of continuous growth, both organically and through acquisitions.

Before partnering with The HBP Group, GCH faced challenges with a fragmented IT system. Each business within the group operated its own IT solutions, leading to inefficiencies, security risks and a lack of a unified strategy. This situation hampered access to critical business information, delayed decision-making and increased the risk of non-compliance with regulations like GDPR.

The HBP Group provided a comprehensive and customised IT strategy for GCH. Recognising the need for streamlined operations and enhanced security, they implemented a unified IT infrastructure that connected all of GCH's businesses under one robust system. The solutions implemented lead to many benefits, including:

• A centralised IT infrastructure which has enabled the management team to make more timely and informed decisions, worth millions of pounds in revenue to the group.
• Compliance with GDPR and other regulatory requirements, reducing the risk of costly penalties and data breaches which could have been as much as £5 million.
• A reduction in IT issues which provides time to focus on plans to increase the turnover by £20 million, from £130 million to £150 million, in the coming years.

Black Onyx Concepts, a veteran-owned and managed company based in Stoke-on-Trent, is a leader in security risk management, providing rapid response services for large infrastructure projects such as Network Rail and HS2. Their unique, multi-faceted service offerings position them as a one-stop-shop for high-level security and risk management needs.

Following explosive growth, which saw Black Onyx expand from a small team of 4-5 individuals to over 120 personnel within a matter of months, the company's operations were hampered by inefficient onboarding processes, cumbersome document management, and outdated technology systems. These inefficiencies led to excessive work hours and increased risk of errors, threatening the company's ability to meet its contractual obligations and ultimately its survival.

The partnership with The HBP Group has had a transformative impact on Black Onyx Concepts, providing them with the tools necessary to not only manage their rapid growth but also to enhance their service delivery. The digital solutions implemented have:

• Generated significant cost savings by cutting down on overtime and administrative labour costs, estimated at over £100,000 annually.
• Increased operational efficiency, allowing the business to tender for new contracts more efficiently than ever, and win new contracts worth over £1 million in the first year.
• Enhanced employee satisfaction by reducing the pressure and workload associated with manual reporting and compliance tasks, helping to increase staff retention and reduce recruitment and onboarding costs by over £10,000 annually.

BetterYou, a UK-based vitamin and supplement company, has a philosophy of prioritising health and innovation through unique delivery methods like oral sprays and transdermal magnesium. As the company expanded its reach in both the domestic and overseas markets the IT infrastructure became outdated and hindered its efficiency. 

As Louise Sprawling, Head of People and Culture at BetterYou, explains, “Our systems were described as archaic by our team and weren’t being used to their full potential. Staff were frustrated and often relied on others for tasks they could have handled themselves, if they had the right tools and training.”

The HBP Group worked closely with BetterYou to implement a digital transformation project that focussed on upgrading IT equipment, optimising the use of Microsoft tools and improving the company’s remote working capabilities, resulting in:

• Improved IT systems that freed up time across the business, saving anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour per day for each member of staff.
• The efficiencies brought by the new IT solution will allow BetterYou to scale without significantly increasing headcount, an opportunity worth at least £1M.
• SharePoint improvements directly impacted efficiency, increasing usage from 6% of staff surveyed to 88% in the first few months of the project.

BetterYou’s partnership with The HBP Group has streamlined operations, saved time and allowed the company to maintain its growth trajectory.

R&G Power Fluid, a leading industrial fluid power solutions provider and part of Diploma PLC, has experienced rapid expansion, now managing around 450 users across multiple sites. As the company grew both organically and through acquisitions, it encountered significant challenges managing its diverse IT systems.

Mick Pike, Group IT Director, has worked with The HBP Group for over 20 years, originally as IT Manager for Pearson Hydraulics. Following a series of acquisitions, Mick quickly progressed to lead the IT operations for R&G Power Fluid, responsible for integrating more than a dozen new acquisitions while maintaining security and compliance.

Working alongside Mick and his team, The HBP Group provided a comprehensive IT strategy that would streamline R&G Power Fluid’s operations and enable efficient growth. The benefits of which included:

• • The centralised system enabled R&G Power Fluid to bring on acquisitions 75% faster than before.
  • Mick’s own journey has seen him take responsibility for a business that has increased turnover dramatically from £6 million to over £100 million today, a 1,500% increase.
  • Routine tasks such as onboarding new users, managing passwords, and handling IT issues have been streamlined, resulting in a 40% reduction in time spent on IT problems.
  • Moving R&G Power Fluid’s IT systems to a secure data centre has improved data security and ensured compliance with GDPR and other industry standards.
  • The company is now set to manage an additional 200 users from future acquisitions, with minimal disruptions thanks to the streamlined IT processes.

The efficiencies gained through The HBP Group’s solutions have given the leadership team the confidence to continue acquiring new businesses and expanding operations.

With the ambitions of growth and increased requirement to communicate across countries it became apparent that Ulrick and Short needed an IT partner that truly understood their business and their individual and unique requirements. Over the years HBP have been able to provide technical solutions in terms of scalability and flexibility as the company have grown, especially in the last 5 years. The business had reached the critical mass to push it to the Cloud, and the most recent project was a full-scale migration of all IT services. Transforming the way the business works, the Cloud has been seen internally as an intimidating, abstract concept for many, but from a user perspective the benefits that are offered are generally ease of access of information both quickly and securely.

The project has enabled peace of mind regarding how the business’ core data was stored, so they can now focus resources on developing and growing the business. Data security, which is such an important factor in Ulrick & Short’s industry has been increased to protect their integrity and benefit the trust element of their brand to their customers.

The relationship between Ulrick & Short and their specialist IT Support provider has gone from strength to strength, and this latest project is a testament to that partnership.

The company continue to benefit from on-going proactive IT and structure project services offered by HBP. This enables them to continue to grow the business and get more customers whilst their infrastructure is managed by a group of specialists on their behalf. Ulrick & Short take a very active role in the management of their network and systems, but support is proactive with consultancy, dedicated maintenance and project time built in to the contract.