Kan Profile

Kan Ltd provides custom
solutions for marketing,
promotional products and
branding projects. The
solutions range from individual items, such as printed carrier bags, promotional and corporate gifts, to clothing, brochures, leaflets and business stationery.

Headquartered next to the Solent in Hamble, Kan’s customers include Esso, Walt Disney, BT, Group 4, Royal Bank of Scotland and Marks & Spencer.

 

“Managed, hosted solutions such as i-Tr@der can be the best way forward for small companies. They reduce the cost of computing and do not impose unnecessary working practices on business owners or staff. For the first time in history the small business has the availability of a software product, designed solely to work over the Internet that harnesses the power of IT technology without making us slaves to it”

Catrina Clarke
Managing Director, Kan Ltd

The solutions provided by Kan represent and enhance the image of each customer and, to maintain its competitiveness, the Company offers a catalogue of over 2000 items, sourcing products from around the world. Where a specific customer requirement cannot be developed using an existing catalogue product, then the Company will design and supply the required solution.

Kan operates in a highly aggressive market and one in which the time, cost and quality demands of each customer must be fully satisfied. Therefore maintaining a good working relationship with each customers is vital, so regular telephone and face-to-face contact is a key part of the business. To this end, the Company employs both head office and field staff to maintain effective communications between its customers and suppliers.

According to Managing Director,
Catrina Clarke, the business is totally reliant on people and the telephone. Supporting systems, such as information technology, enable the business to operate more effectively and efficiently, but should never dictate how the business should be run.

Before establishing Kan, Catrina Clarke designed and implemented a bespoke IT solution. However, it was not until last year that she identified a comparative system from IPS. Catrina Clarke admitted that engaging with IPS during a period of high Internet based software development contained an element of risk.

The option to implement the correct IT solution for the business outweighed the problems of continuing with traditional general purpose software applications, which are functionally rich, but overly complex. With i-Tr@der, IPS offered Kan a different way to deploy and use information technology using the Internet as Kan’s business network.

The design methodology behind the IPS i-Tr@der software was the main attraction for Catrina Clarke. The ability to host all the trading and administrative applications on a remotely managed server, linked to users via the Internet, immediately resolved several problems with the existing IT systems.

Responsibility for day-to-day
administration of the system was removed, while data backup and security services were automated. As the monthly rental charge for i-Tr@der incorporates hardware,
applications, administration and maintenance, the running costs were significantly reduced, with no hidden surprises.

Initially, a Windows server had been installed at Kan offices in Hamble, but this has now been replaced by the hosted i-Tr@der service located in Central London. Connection is via Broadband or dial-up communications. To access the system the users, no matter where they are located, simply require Internet Explorer.

The working relationship between Catrina Clarke and IPS has benefited both companies. Kan has been provided with a first class service during early deployment and usage of new IPS software applications. In return IPS has benefited from the commercial expertise and feed back from Catrina Clarke.

  

Six months into the project, the core trading operations of Kan are now totally managed by i-Tr@der.

Four business functions are operational; Sales, Purchasing, Customer Management and Desktop Services.Catrina Clarke is looking forward to implementing the new standard Job Costing module that will enable the allocation of expenditure across different areas of operation. This module is to be incorporated into the Standard i-Tr@der system.

A number of objectives and benefits have already materialised. As business owner, Catrina Clarke can view the status of individual sales and purchase orders at anytime and from any worldwide

  

unauthorised Internet access and email spam has been eliminated.

Catrina Clarke is satisfied with the success of the system, to-date. She realises that the concept of a managed hosted IT service is not well known or understood by small companies, but believes it represents the future of business computing. Also, the costs of deploying and running the i-Tr@der system are most attractive to small businesses.

In her opinion, the mainstream
suppliers of standard business software packages are totally reliant on repeat licence revenues.

This can only be achieved by continual software and hardware

location using a standard Internet connection.

This provides much tighter management control over the business. Potential problem areas can be highlighted and resolved at an early stage. Financial management has also been simplified. The Company’s accountants are given controlled, remote access to the system,
which has already negated the need for an in-house book keeper.

Also, as emails are only permitted to contacts held with Customer Management, the problem of

 

upgrades, resulting in constant reconfiguration and disruption.The concept of remotely hosted
business solutions with no applications resident on the desktop, allows the computing resource to fully support the
business, but with minimum overhead, investment or risk.

Hosted Internet solutions from IPS using i-Tr@der have reduced the cost of computing within Kan. More importantly, management has focused IT on improving the performance of the business, rather than dictating the processes by which the Company is run.