The Hillarys Group Ltd

Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition integrated with SAP

The Hillarys Group Ltd is the UK’s largest supplier of made to measure blinds. Operating throughout the UK with a sales team of over 800 self-employed local advisors, turnover in 2004 was £85.3m with operating profits of £13.3m. The advisors visit over five million customers in their homes every year. Hillarys has an enviable reputation for choice, quality, value and customer service. The company’s continued expansion and success resulted in the need to expand and improve their business management functions, to maintain the increasing demand and service levels.

Paul McKeown, System Support Manager, at Hillarys Blinds, investigated the market to source a new business information delivery solution that could help streamline business processes, by automating the flow of information and documents, with particular emphasis in improving communications with the advisors.

On his findings, Paul recounts, “Hillarys Blinds had previously invested in SAP, so it was very important that any solution we went for, integrated seamlessly into our SAP system and our existing Microsoft Exchange infrastructure. Following an evaluation, it was decided that Open Text Fax Server was the best route forward, as it would improve business performance by rapidly automating the delivery of business-critical documents via fax directly from our SAP applications. We could also see potential business benefits for utilising some of the other features of the product including inbound faxing via exchange and mail-to-fax services.”

Following meetings with Avanquest consultants, a system was specified and installed to meet the business requirements of Hillarys Blinds. The system consisted of a 6 line Fax Server Enterprise Server, a SAP Connector, an Exchange Email Gateway and a Postscript Module. Initially, a 2 line and a 4 line Digital Fax Card were installed and as the system grew, Hillarys added an additional 2 fax lines and an additional 4 line digital fax card.

Paul adds, “The implementation and post installation support was handled well by Avanquest and I enjoy a good relationship with my Account Manager, who keeps me up to date with the product’s developments.”

Fax Server with the SAP connector, distributed in the UK by Avanquest, offers one of the most reliable, secure and scalable product lines available for document delivery from SAP applications. It combines flexible integration and leading-edge data recognition tools, with SAP document delivery capabilities.

Applications for Fax Server which utilise the SAP connector are typically backoffice, batch-oriented, repetitive, mission-critical processes. This is the case at Hillarys Blinds, the main processes automated by Fax Server being the distribution of the advisor appointment diaries. Before Fax Server was implemented appointments were manually passed by phone and manually faxed to only a few of the advisors. The introduction of Fax Server has enabled the company to completely automate the processes and has become a valuable tool in supporting two-way communications with their advisors. All the advisors now receive their appointments by fax each night, the Fax Server SAP connector directs them to the Fax Server facility, where they are automatically distributed.

The solution is uniquely suited for high volume, repetitive documents generated in SAP applications, printed on preprinted forms, folded, packed and then mailed or manually faxed. There are many typical documents in a large organisation, ranging from standard invoices and purchase orders through to full statements. The solution offers the benefit of automated, unattended fax delivery from virtually all SAP R/3 and mySAP applications, all from one server with access to fax and email.