Deeper product analysis drives steady growth trajectory for family business

The company is owned and run by Don Scott, a savvy businessman who is data-driven and passionate about his brand. Don can’t imagine his business pre-Phocas, especially from the sales analysis point of view.

"I wouldn’t go back to pre-Phocas,” said Don.

As the owner Don wears many hats in the company, including the National Sales Manager role. He relies on his data to identify new opportunities and nurture steady growth.

"Every decision I’m making on a day-to-day basis is based on Phocas,” said Don.

Timberline invests in brand and partnerships 

Unlike other manufacturers, Timberline is passionate about its brand and invests in it to help grow the business. Timberline has worked on many initiatives to drive brand awareness, such as tailormade campaigns for specific retailers such as Bunnings, Harvey Norman, Beaumont Tiles and Tradelink. 

To justify its investment in the brand, Timberline needs good data, visibility and granular details about sales to measure their return on investment and make better decisions.

"The best thing with Phocas is not only are you looking at revenue streams, you are also looking at volume of items sold, as well as average dollar value of items sold,” Don explained. 

Data insights for everyone  

When researching the options for a data analytics solution, Don wanted a solution that anyone could use —not just the CFO or IT staff —and he found exactly that with Phocas. "The number one thing for me about Phocas is that you can’t break it, you hit the reset button and you’re safe. I’m not  an IT person at all and I really enjoy that you can just play with it,” said Don. 

As a result, Timberline sales staff use Phocas to create and share reports with customers and don’t need to rely on one person to do this, this self-service reporting helps everyone save time and use accurate numbers to focus on important tasks.  

“Reporting used to be done once a month by our CFO. He would take reports out of MYOB and that would take him half a day. He would then send the reports to me in Excel format and I would dress them up to and send them off to customers and our sales team. Whereas now, I’ve got automatic reports, I can set up and share with my customers whenever I want,” explained Don. 

Sales reps use Phocas to identify opportunities and grow customer profitability 

Having visibility of data across the business has really helped Timberline to make better financial decisions and identify opportunities.

"Currently, we are analysing our sales database in Phocas, the reps on the road are also using it and each have logins. They can see which customers of mine are buying x,y,z and can see the dollar value against budget. Our sales reps are rewarded against these sales so they have transparency into these figures,” explained Don.

"Phocas makes me feel confident and it is certainly a good stress reliever. There are a lot of unknowns in business and there are a lot of things that Phocas can give me that become ‘knowns’ very quickly or easily,”
Don Scott — business owner, Timberline

Understanding the big picture with dashboards 

Timberline uses dashboards so they can make decisions with data instead of relying on gut feel. They now have a holistic view of different revenue streams, so they can see what products are performing best and see where the biggest opportunities are. 

"We use a Phocas dashboard to show us where we are all at,” said Don.  Dashboards are an easy way to help everyone understand the big picture and where they are at against budget during the month. Helping Timberline to hit sales targets and grow month on month.

"A term we love here is ‘playing to win’ and you’ve got to have an accurate score board at any time to see if you’re playing to win, not playing to lose.”  Having clear and accurate data makes sure Timberline is playing to win. And they are this financial year with record annual sales.  

Having data at Don’s fingertips also takes the pain out of making crucial decisions.  "It’s a whole lot easier making decisions knowing the data behind it and it’s so quick and easy and that’s what everyone loves,” said Don.

In the next phase of analysis, Timberline will bring in its customer care information such as email correspondence and phone logs into Phocas to better understand its customer service performance – from how long the team takes to answer the phone to how responsive they are with quotes back to customers.

At Timberline the goal is to continue to grow its business – be it through investing in its brand, providing outstanding customer service or creating beautiful and unique furniture.

We can tell that Timberline is going to continue with its growth trajectory for some time and will use Phocas daily to help with its growth. 

Benefits for Timberline

Customer behavior analysis

Timberline sales staff use Phocas to create and share reports with customers and don’t need to rely on one person to do this, this self-service reporting helps everyone save time and use accurate numbers to focus on important tasks.

Inventory management

Timberline uses dashboards so they can make decisions with data instead of relying on gut feel. They now have a holistic view of different revenue streams, so they can see what products are performing best and see where the biggest opportunities are.

Risk management

Having clear and accurate data makes sure Timberline is playing to win. And they are this financial year with record annual sales.