Case Study: How Denatec uses digital systems to improve business performance

Established in 2020, Denatec are experts in the design, manufacture, installation, and maintenance of equipment used in challenging engineering applications where extreme pressures, temperatures, loads, or other hazards are present.

Having grown rapidly since its inception, Denatec’s engineering team have 50+ years of combined knowledge and skills in all disciplines of engineering, from concept design, manufacture right through to installation and maintenance. The business offers project management and multi-disciplined design & engineering resources, coupled with specialist on-site services providing a turn-key solution for their customer’s projects.

A systems first approach

When they started Denatec, the founding partnership of Nathan Peel and Dean Talbot also brought significant experience of ERP, MRP and CRM systems, having deployed and used such systems in previous roles. They were well aware of the pitfalls of poorly fitting and disjointed business software, but knew that Denatec should be established with integrated cloud based systems, from day one.

Having had bad experiences with bespoke ERP systems, Denatec wanted a management system that was off the shelf, didn’t require a lot of customization, and had all the features they needed to handle sales, operations, service and billing. Everything from how to handle enquiries and sales leads, to parts, stock, invoicing and accounting software integration was necessary to allow the business to focus on customers instead of admin.

Crucially Denatec wanted a system that could handle both equipment and service.

They considered a few options before settling on Flowlens because of its features, flexibility, onboarding support, and Xero connectivity.

Competitive advantage

Denatec’s technical solutions provide them with a significant technical advantage over the competition. And with end to end systems streamlining their process, the team can spend more time working on those solutions, rather than worrying about administrative processes and tasks. This combination has given the business a significant competitive advantage.

Co-founder and director, Nathan Peel, says: “We’re now picking up customers that want a quick response, they want quick turnaround, they want quick communication, and they want quotes very quickly.  It’s our ability with digital tools, to turn that around very quickly, that now seems to be one of the things that is really good for our business.”

The fact that any of their employees can pick up the system and generate purchase orders, enquiries, or sales leads means that anyone can pick up the slack, instead of having to have individual people doing specialized tasks.

The ease of importing data from CAD, generating purchase orders, the convenience of producing sales invoices, and then interfacing with Xero, have reduced turnaround times significantly.

“If I didn’t have this platform and we were going back to the old school methods of using spreadsheets and generating our procurement requirements through the use of spreadsheets, then I would need certainly an extra person sat on a seat,” adds Peel.

Quality management system

Denatec were adamant about getting ISO 9001 accreditation in the first quarter of trading, and were successful in doing so. And for that, they needed a business operating system that was ISO 9001 compliant, which they had to demonstrate.

Peel concludes: “We would have never been able to do that so quickly, if it wasn’t for the help that we got in implementing Flowlens, not only implementing it, but also as we were using it, helping us to rectify mistakes quickly and guide us into a better way of doing things. All our business information is a mouse click away. It’s transformational.”

Quality is at the heart of what Denatec does, and the investment in systems, coupled with the passionate and experienced technical team, makes for a compelling proposition in the market.