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Hoyne Design
Project estimate accuracy the biggest plus for Hoyne Design using Streamline
Business Challenge
Hoyne Design is a busy design agency with extensive experience in the property and FMCG industries doing branding and packaging projects for the likes of Triple J, Kraft, Kellogg’s, Coles, Coca-Cola. and Australia Post. Hoyne employs some 20 staff across two offices in Melbourne and Sydney including designers, production managers, art directors and account service and administrative staff. Hoyne Design was looking for a single system that would capture all its relevant data and streamline a variety of its critical business processes such as project estimation, invoicing and reporting. Melanie was familiar with the FileMaker solution from previous work experience and was keen to bring its power and ease of use to Hoyne Design. With that in mind the company were referred to Particle Systems and its custom product for the design industry – Streamline – which is built in FileMaker Pro 9. “Streamline from Particle Systems built in Filemaker Pro 9 has made us efficient in ways we never were before and definitely more productive, plus my life is much easier!” said Melanie. “Since we implemented the solution, the designers still complain about having to do their timesheets – but they complain less about how long it takes them to do them, the account managers find the reporting and constant updates a huge advantage and everyone is saving time on invoicing and estimates.” “The number one change I’ve seen in the business is efficiency. Streamline has unburdened us from administration and allowed us to speed up our processes.” Melanie Clark, Project Director, Hoyne Design Hoyne Design Colleen Elcham
With strong business growth increasing demand for their services, Hoyne Design had begun facing the challenge of a burgeoning workload combined with a project management, job tracking and customer relationship management system that they were fast outgrowing.
The company’s Project Director, Melanie Clark explained, “We had outgrown our existing systems. What had served us reasonably well for a time was quickly not keeping up with the extra administration that comes with more jobs, more clients and more staff members. It was also the case that the administrative system wasn’t entirely compatible with the latest versions of the Mac technology platform we were running the design side of the business on.”
The manual generation of estimates and quotes was one administrative area that was holding back Hoyne’s potential for growth. “We needed a system that could automate and standardise the process accurately and take some of the administrative burden from both designers and support staff,” said Melanie.
The speed of the existing system itself was another concern for Hoyne as its business expanded. Melanie explains, “It was becoming slow and convoluted as we needed more from it. We had all the information that we needed but were looking for a system that would make it easier to administer and give us order and structure.”
Successful Solution
Melanie explained, “In order to make the decision, we attended Particle Systems’ Streamline seminars and consulted closely with Aaron Green [Managing Director of Particle Systems] and his team. We were pleased to discover that they completely understood the needs of the design industry and took the time to help us work out customisation changes that would make Streamline function to our specific needs.”
Streamline was exactly what Hoyne Design was looking for. The product is a single workflow management and database solution, developed in FileMaker Pro, to allow creative agencies to quickly and easily track and manage design jobs, briefs, hours, disbursements, invoicing, quoting and contact information. It ensures all information is captured accurately to improve management of revenue and expenses. The Hoyne implementation was a quick and simple process. Particle Systems worked behind the scenes for two months with collective in-house help from Melanie to ensure that the system worked exactly to Hoyne’s requirements. One example of the customisation that took place was the visual aspect of how Hoyne’s customers would see the stationery, the cost estimates and the invoices; it had to look good and reflect the competency of the creative agency. Most importantly the changeover caused minimal disruption to Hoyne’s team of designers and account managers. The training process with Streamline was also completed remotely and a complete success. Melanie commented, “Because the program is intuitive it is easy to get a handle on and therefore training and learning of Streamline was effortless.”
Customer Benefits
Some of the important benefits Streamline has generated include:
Melanie said, “Even the General Manager is astonished every time he raises an invoice just how much faster it is. The speed and accuracy of reporting makes us look very good to clients and prospects, especially in a service line of business where speed of response is a crucial differentiator. Streamline gives us a great advantage in not wasting time on administration so we are able to turn things around quickly for clients.”
She concluded, “The number one difference to our business is improved productivity because we now know, and we didn’t accurately before, where all the money and time in the business is going.”
Contact information
Contact Info for Customer:
+61 2 9225 6500
http://www.hoyne.com.au
Filemaker Contact:
Marketing Coordinator, Asia Pacific
FileMaker Inc.
+61 2 9641 8084
colleen_elcham@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com.au
