Strensall Merchants / BG-Demo – Demo
Callcompleted
Strensall Merchants · 2 Jan 2025 10:45
Demo on 2 Jan 2025 for a possible Enterprise deal. Neil Craven liked it but will not sign or go upstairs until Ashok Patel is satisfied on connectors and security. The drafted proposal is £144k plus VAT.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Demo on 2 Jan 2025 for a possible Enterprise deal. Neil Craven liked it but will not sign or go upstairs until Ashok Patel is satisfied on connectors and security. The drafted proposal is £144k plus VAT.
What happened: Hannah Lowe showed search, a North East regional page and a dashboard on Strensall's sample data. B-Viz found a trade account held under two account numbers, which Ashok called a real finding.
Customer view: Neil wants branch, credit and key-account teams on one tool, so a single-team start does not suit him. Ashok is nervous about branch systems of different ages and wants a pilot branch first.
Commercial: Lewis Kerr quoted the drafted proposal at £144k plus VAT, implementation included, as the total for the deal and not a yearly figure. Neil would not discuss price without finance and wants a follow-up before mid February.
Watch: Promised delivery dates are overwritten when branches rebook, and free-text reading is imperfect. Ashok also needs the security questionnaire answered correctly first time.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Enterprise demo evaluation
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Hannah to send the connector plan, permissions diagram and list of data questions.
- Lewis to send the proposal breakdown the same day and set up a session with Strensall's finance side.
- Agree a pilot branch with Ashok before the build is scoped.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Branches overwrite promised delivery dates, so B-Viz could report what the system says rather than what happened.
- Neil will not take the proposal upstairs until Ashok is satisfied on connectors, permissions and security.
- Price has not been discussed with Strensall's finance side.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Enterprise across branch, credit and key-account teams, with single sign-on and user provisioning.
- The duplicate trade account finding shows value that Strensall could not see before.
Transcript
Lewis KerrMorning, all. Can everyone hear me alright? I've got Hannah with me, and I can see Neil and Ashok. Karen, I think you're just joining.
Karen OxleyMorning. Sorry, I'm in the car park at the Durham branch, so if I drop out that's why. I'll keep my camera off, the signal's not brilliant.
Neil CravenHappy New Year, everyone. Honestly, I've already had a housebuilder on the phone this morning. Second of January and they want to know why a delivery note doesn't match what the branch told them. So this is well timed.- Lewis KerrHa, no rest for anyone. Happy New Year, Neil. Right, just so we're all aligned, my understanding is you'd like to see B-Viz working on your own data, with a view to deciding on Enterprise, and ideally getting to a decision by mid February. Is that still fair?
- Neil CravenThat's fair. We're not here to look at slides. I want to see a trade account, one real one, and see what the branch sees, what credit sees and what the builder sees.
Hannah LoweGood. Before I share anything, can I ask what you most need to know by the end of the hour? Because I can go wide or I can go deep, and I'd rather go where it's useful.
Ashok PatelFrom my side, the first thing is how it joins accounts up. We have the same trade customer under different account numbers depending on the branch. Which account number is that, which branch, and does it recognise they're one customer?- Hannah LoweThat's the right question to start with. The short answer is yes, it can, if the match key is sensible. The longer answer is that it depends on what your systems share. I'll show you what we did with the extract you sent over and you can tell me where it's wrong.
- Ashok PatelFine. I'd rather you showed me where it's wrong than where it's right, to be honest.
- Hannah LoweHa, understood. I'll put that in writing afterwards as a list. Okay, sharing my screen now. Can you see the B-Viz home page?
- Karen OxleyI can see a search box and a lot of white.
- Neil CravenAye, same here. It's not exactly a Christmas tree, is it?
- Hannah LoweDeliberately plain. Everything starts here. You ask a question in ordinary words and it answers from the data in your own Snowflake account. Nothing is copied out to us. It runs inside your environment, which Ashok's team will care about and I'll come back to at the end.
- Ashok PatelMm. Good. That was the thing our security people asked first.
- Hannah LoweThought it might be. So let me pick one of the larger housebuilder accounts from your sample. I've anonymised nothing, it's the sample you gave us, so please don't repeat it outside this call. I'll type: show me everything we know about this account over the last quarter.
- Hannah LoweAnd while that's thinking, you can see it's pulling from four places: orders, deliveries, the credit ledger and call notes.
- Neil CravenRight. That's the bit. That's what I've been trying to get for years. Who's rung us, what's been delivered, and whether they're on stop.
- Hannah LoweSo here's the page. Top left is the account summary. Orders by branch, the deliveries that went out late, the credit position, and underneath, the recent conversations. Each line has a source link, so if it says something you can click and see where it came from.
- Karen OxleyCan I ask, sorry, what's the builder actually seeing? Because that late deliveries line, is that late against what we promised or late against the date they asked for?
- Hannah LoweTo be precise, it's late against the promised date held in your delivery system. If the customer's requested date is also held there, I can show both. Ashok, is that a field you load today?
- Ashok PatelIt is, but not consistently. Some branches overwrite the promised date when they rebook. So the data says one thing and the driver's sheet says another. I'd want to test that on one branch first.
- Hannah LoweThat's a really useful flag, and I'm glad it's out early. It won't make B-Viz wrong, but it would make it confidently reporting what the system says rather than what happened. We'd note that as a data quality item in the connector design.
- Neil CravenLet's sort it, not talk about it. If the branches overwrite dates, that's a branch discipline thing, and I can have that conversation. Karen, you'd back me on that?
- Karen OxleyWithin reason. Some of it's the depot rebooking a van because of the weather, and the branch has no say. But yes, we could keep the original date. Nobody's ever asked us to before.
- Neil CravenWell, now I'm asking.
- Lewis KerrI'll just note that down as something for the scoping document. Carry on, Hannah, sorry.
- Hannah LoweNo, that's exactly the sort of thing. Let me move on to the question that I suspect Neil's morning caller would have asked. I'll type: why does the delivery note not match the order for this account last week?
- Hannah LoweGive it a moment. It's reading the order lines and the delivery lines and comparing them.
- Hannah LoweThere we go. So it's found two lines where the quantity on the delivery note is lower than the order. In both cases there's a note from the branch saying part-delivered, balance to follow. And it's pointing at a call note from the customer a day later asking where the balance was.
- Neil CravenWell, that's it, that's the whole thing. The builder rang, the branch knew, but credit didn't, and sales didn't. Three people with three bits.
- Ashok PatelCan I see where the part-delivered note came from? Which system?
- Hannah LoweYes. Click on the source and it shows the record. That's your delivery system, the free-text field on the despatch line. So it's reading free text, which it's quite good at, but I wouldn't say it's perfect. That's worth knowing.
- Ashok PatelThank you. I appreciate you saying so. Most vendors would not.
- Hannah LoweIt's not much use to you if I oversell it, and you'd find out in the first week.
- Karen OxleyCan I ask something a bit more basic? If I'm a branch manager and I'm not a data person, how do I use this on a Tuesday morning? Because I've got a counter full of lads at seven.
- Hannah LoweFair. Three ways. You can search, as I just did. You can open a page that someone has already built for your region, so you don't need to ask anything. Or you can use chat, which is the same as search but you can follow up. Let me show you a page. I've put together a draft for the North East.
- Hannah LoweOkay, this is a regional view. Your branches down the left, the trade accounts with open issues in the middle, and anything that's on credit hold on the right. If I click your Durham branch...
- Karen OxleyOh. That's my branch. That's actually, yeah, that's right. That one at the top is the contractor who's been complaining about the pallets.
- Neil CravenPallets. Always pallets.
- Karen OxleyDon't. I've been waiting for someone to tell me what credit thinks of him. If that's on a screen I don't have to ring Head Office.
- Hannah LoweRight, and that's the point of putting credit next to deliveries. You'd see the position without a phone call. Though, to be clear, whether a branch manager should see everything about credit is your decision. We can restrict what each role sees.
- Neil CravenThat's a conversation for me and finance, not today. But good to know it's possible.
- Ashok PatelIs that handled by roles inside the product, or by what we grant in Snowflake?
- Hannah LoweBoth, and they work together. The short answer is that B-Viz can't show anyone anything the underlying permissions don't allow. The longer answer involves how we map your groups, which with Enterprise includes single sign-on and automated user provisioning. I'll put that in writing, with a diagram, because it's easier on paper.
- Ashok PatelDiagram would help. Thank you.
- Lewis KerrWhile Hannah has that up, can I just check the shape of what you're trying to buy, so I'm not guessing? Neil, you mentioned branch, trade-credit and key-account teams all using it together. That's why we've been talking about Enterprise, rather than starting with one team.
- Neil CravenYes. If it's only one team it's another silo. The whole point is credit and sales and branches agreeing on a customer. If we only do key accounts, we've just built a nicer version of what we've got.
- Lewis KerrUnderstood. And I won't push you towards anything the usage doesn't support, so I'd rather we agree the scope and then see if the tier fits. To put a number on it, the proposal we've drafted comes to £143,500, plus VAT, all in, with the implementation included. That's the total for the deal, not a yearly figure. I'll send the breakdown over today.
- Neil CravenI'm not going to talk price with you today. I'll want finance in the room for that. But I'm glad it's on the table so I know what I'm taking upstairs.
- Lewis KerrCompletely fair. We'll set up a separate session with your finance side once you've seen enough here. I just didn't want a surprise later.
- Ashok PatelCan we go back to the connectors? Because that's where I get nervous. We have a lot of branch systems, and not all of them are the same age.
- Hannah LoweYes, let's. Stop me if this is too much. Let me share the connector plan. This is what I'd propose, not a commitment. Orders and deliveries first, then the credit ledger, then call notes and emails.
- Hannah LoweThe reason for that order is that orders and deliveries give you the visible win quickly. Credit comes second because that's where the data is most sensitive and you'll want to test the permissions properly before anyone sees it.
- Ashok PatelAgreed. I'd test it on one branch first, then widen. I don't want ninety-five branches seeing the wrong thing on day one.
- Hannah LoweNor do we. A pilot branch is a good idea. Which would you choose?
- Ashok PatelSomewhere with the cleanest data, not the biggest. Karen, I'd think Durham is messy, so probably not yours.
- Karen OxleyCheers. Messy but honest. Though I'd volunteer a smaller one in my patch if it helps, they're tidier.
- Neil CravenLet's decide that after. What I want to know is how long before my people can use it. I don't want a year.
- Hannah LoweFor Enterprise the implementation is planned over a quarter or so, and that includes the security review support. Lewis will put the dates in the proposal. I'd rather he gave you a date than I guessed one.
- Lewis KerrYes, I'll not quote it from memory. It'll be in writing. And if you decide to go ahead, Daniel Okafor, our customer success manager, picks you up after the build and looks after adoption.
- Neil CravenGood. Somebody needs to own it after the clever people have gone.
- Lewis KerrThat's pretty much his job.
- Hannah LoweShall I show you the dashboards builder next? Ashok, you'll like this, because it lets you build a report and check it against the ledger.
- Ashok PatelGo on. If it matches the ledger I'll be happy. If it doesn't, I'll be happier, because then I've found something.
- Hannah LoweHa. Right, so I've built a simple one: total outstanding by trade account, across all branches. And here's the same figure from the sample ledger you sent. Compare the top five.
- Ashok PatelMm. The first three match. The fourth is out. Which account number is that?
- Hannah LoweIt's the one that appears under two numbers. That's the join we were talking about earlier. In the dashboard it's one customer, in the ledger it's two. I'd say the dashboard is probably right in spirit, but you'd need to decide which view is the official one.
- Ashok PatelThat's a real finding. That's one I've been trying to explain to credit for months. Neil, that's your fourth biggest account, by the way, if you treat them as one.
- Neil CravenIs it? Right. See, that's what I mean. Nobody sees it as one customer. Credit sees two small ones. Sales sees one big one. No wonder we argue.
- Karen OxleyThat explains a lot about the pallet man, actually.
- Neil CravenKaren, we're not solving pallets on a supplier's call.
- Karen OxleySorry. But I'm writing his name down.
- Lewis KerrLet me capture where we are, because I think we've covered a lot. You've seen search, a regional page and a dashboard, you've seen it find a mismatch you didn't know about, and you've got two concerns: the promised dates being overwritten and the free-text reading. Have I missed anything?
- Ashok PatelSecurity. We've only touched on it. Our IT lot will want a questionnaire answered, and I'd rather it's right first time.
- Hannah LoweThat's mine, and I run every one of those personally for Enterprise. If the questionnaire has anything I'm not sure of, I check with our security lead before I answer, rather than guess. You'll get answers in writing, and I won't claim a control we don't have.
- Ashok PatelThat's all I ask. Honestly.
- Neil CravenRight. Can I say where I am? I like it. I like that it shows me the builder's side. I'm not signing anything today, and I'm not taking it upstairs until Ashok's happy with the plumbing.
- Ashok PatelI'm closer than I was an hour ago. I'd still like the pilot branch plan and the diagram first.
- Lewis KerrThen here's what I suggest. Hannah sends the connector plan, the permissions diagram and the list of data questions we raised, and I send the proposal breakdown today. We aim for a follow-up with finance in the room well before the middle of February. I've pencilled the fourteenth in as where we'd like to land, but that's a target, not a deadline.
- Neil CravenFine by me. Send it to Ashok and me both.
- Karen OxleyAnd me, if you can. I'd like to see the North East page again when I'm not in a car park.
- Hannah LoweAbsolutely. I'll keep that draft page for you, Karen, and tidy it up with what you said about the promised dates.
- Lewis KerrThanks, everyone. Happy New Year again, and speak soon.
- Neil CravenCheers, all. Right, I've a builder to ring back.
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