Burson Autoparts are Australia's premier automotive parts
distributor with 79 parts stores around Australia and over 780
staff nationally. Burson have been utilising Sherpa's dedicated
store network communication tools as a key platform for growth for
more than three years.
"Our Sherpa Teamworks platform is more than 'just
another system' but a tool that our team loves to use and what we
believe is our competitive advantage."
""You cannot underestimate the benefits of being able
to manage teams effectively. Sherpa makes the business agile which
enables growth. And people LOVE using it."
Claire Karafillis, General Manager Retail Operations, G-Star
"The Sherpa platform has made a huge difference to the
manner in which we manage the recruitment process across our
network engaging all Team Burson staff in the
process."
The Story
When Garry Johnson, Managing Director of Burson Automotive
commenced business in 1971, he started out by distributing a range
of automotive chemical products to workshops and service stations.
Today, Burson's operates 79 stores across a national network, with
over 300 delivery vehicles on the road supported by a state of the
art 14,500 sq metre distribution centre in Preston Victoria. This
network is responsible for currently employing over 800 team
members.
Operating across 5 regions within Australia, the team at Burson
Autoparts supply thousands of customers every day with the very
best in sales, customer service and product support. Burson's
focus.... For their continued success.
The Need
The Burson Autoparts team sought a platform that could replace
there existing intranet with a more dynamic environment that
standardised communications and processes across the network, that
engaged all users in a way that was easy and fun with a highly
functional set of applications. They also sought to connect all
members of Team Burson intuitively with information that was
contextually relevant to them.
Burson needed an internal communications tool that could help
there people more easily access information across the network and
across devices.
The key areas they sought to address were recruitment, deployment
and internal communications.
Key Tasks
• Enhance communication both
internally and externally
• To enhance the sense of
community within Burson Auto Parts as the company grows and
develops
• To develop a single, highly
functional point of entry for state managers and customer service
staff to quickly and easily find the information they need to help
them provide a great customer experience.
• To provide a single hub of
information to assist customer-facing staff perform their
roles;
• To provide an even better
customer service experience for customers;
• To migrate the intranet
from the IT department to the general business; and
• To further improve internal
communications and the culture at Burson
Challenges
• Engage all users, 100% take
up
• Low IT literacy
• Quick deployment with
minimal internal impact
Recruitment challenge
Faced with a growing organization, Burson needed to hire a minimum
of 70 -100 new staff into its retail outlets around Australia with
no centralized Human Resource department every year. Sherpa's
advanced Erecruitment platform has allowed this process to be
decentralized, empowering each Regional Manager and store manager
to make decisions and access people quickly through tools that are
intuitive and easy to use.
The Outcome
• Enhanced communication both
internally and externally
• Enhanced sense of community
within Burson Auto Parts as the company grows and develops
• Developed a single, highly
functional point of entry for state managers and customer service
staff to quickly and easily find the information they need to help
them provide a great customer experience.
• Enhanced internal
communications generally, with the objective of even happier
employees;
• Provides a single hub of
information to assist customer-facing staff perform their
roles;
• Provides an even better
customer service experience for customers;
• Migrates the intranet from
the IT department to the general business; and
• Improves internal
communications and the culture at Burson
• Recruitment of new staff
over 120 new staff members recruited at only $9 per candidate
saving over $500,000 per annum.
• Staff operating efficiency
and productivity up 300%
• Employee Engagement
100%
• Greater flexibility to
staff needs.
In the toughest of economic environments Sherpa's advanced
platform has allowed the team at Burson Auto Parts to scale new
heights in operational efficiency.
Company employees are engaged in the business, all aspects of
staffing are vastly more effective and efficient and the company
has the benefit of applying the very latest technology to ongoing
business improvements without any increase in capital costs going
forward. Our ongoing commitment to Burson Auto Parts "the
flexibility to adapt is key".
Sherpa continues to work with the management team at Burson Auto
Parts in an effort to better understand their needs. In so doing,
we assess in real terms what they most enjoy about our systems, the
things we were doing well, the problems we were solving and the
problems they continued to have that we could help to solve in the
future.
