Enterprise Times caught up with Andrew Longland recently. Longland is the Managing Director of HIT Technology, a Syspro partner. He joined the company two years ago to accelerate its growth as it became an official partner of Syspro. The company was founded by Paul Hartshorn in 2008 and has worked with Syspro, implementing and supporting the Manufacturing ERP system since the company was founded.
First, I asked Longland to tell me who HIT technology is?
“HIT Technology provides leading ERP solutions centred around Syspro to manufacturing and distribution businesses. We are not just software consultants but business consultants who use software as a tool to solve the problem. We’ve been doing this for 15 years now. We understand how manufacturing and distribution organisations operate. Many of our team come from industry rather than being just software experts. So they talk the right language, and they understand the problems the manufacturing industry faces on a day-to-day basis and can provide solutions to solve those issues.”
Why Syspro?
“For me, Syspro probably offers the most value out of the box of ERP systems that are designed for manufacturing businesses. I’ve been in this game for a very long time and worked with various ERP systems. The flexibility and customisation that you can have within Syspro sets it apart from the competition.”
Are manufacturers adopting the Cloud?
Are you deploying in the cloud or on-premise?
“Both, there is a place for both, Syspro offers both. There is a hybrid adoption of traditional on-premise perpetual licence but hosted by either Syspro or ourselves.”
What is the trend?
“The trend is moving more towards the cloud offering. What we’re seeing more of is hybrid, where existing customers have already made the investment with their license, but they don’t want to have on-prem any more, and they’re coming to us about how we can help to move them into a cloud environment. Certain new deals are looking cloud first.”
What did you achieve in 2023?
“Growth, in terms of both revenue and team size, we now have 16 people in the team. I set myself the goal of bringing the business back to Pre-pandemic turnover figures, which we achieved, and some. I am actually about 20% higher than my target this year.”
Looking forward
What are your ambitions for 2024?
“Continue that growth, to bulk the team with additional skills because there is a lot of new product out there and new functionality, to ensure the team are all fully up to speed with that. To continue supporting our existing customer base who themselves are growing. Most of our customers are in a growth period as well, and Syspro fits really well in that market space.”
What is the vision?
“To become the number one Syspro vendor in the UK for the SME market.”
Any ambitions to go abroad?
“Potentially into mainland Europe. It is in our vision, but it’s in the longer term.”
On challenges and priorities
What are your challenges?
“Resource is often a challenge but we’ve probably overcome a lot of that over the last 12 months. Exposure is probably our biggest challenge right now in terms of brand awareness. When you sit in front of prospects quite often, the teams in that business haven’t heard of Syspro. They have heard of our competitors. We have to bring it up to the same level.”
What are your Priorities?
“To continue to refine our own internal processes to add value to our customers and to ensure we are doing things efficiently for them. To continue looking at other partner products that work with Syspro to offer more value to our customers.”
