Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Proposal
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 6 Jan 2025 14:30
Proposal call with the CFO and Head of Commercial Systems on Enterprise. £146k is the total deal value, not an annual price. Signature is targeted for 14 Feb 2025; the security review is the likeliest slip.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Proposal call with the CFO and Head of Commercial Systems on Enterprise. £146k is the total deal value, not an annual price. Signature is targeted for 14 Feb 2025; the security review is the likeliest slip.
What happened: Lewis Kerr walked Malcolm Ridgway and Deepa Chauhan through a scoped Enterprise proposal. The £146k is the total deal value, with subscription and implementation to be shown as separate lines, exclusive of VAT.
Customer view: Malcolm wants a return he can show the board and asked what happens if the data goes stale. Deepa wants every answer traced back to its source record and will not promise features to regional directors until she has seen them.
Commercial: Malcolm asked for quarterly invoicing priced alongside annual, and for named connectors with timings written into the order form. The discount is first term only, on the subscription, with renewal at list price.
Watch: Lewis said the security review is the thing most likely to move the date, and the IT contact is still to come from Deepa. How branch and account views overlap in permissions was left for the first workshops.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Enterprise proposal and terms
Importance
neutral
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- Lewis Kerr to send the proposal, draft order form and master agreement the same day, with subscription, implementation and discount on separate lines.
- Deepa Chauhan to send the IT contact, systems freeze dates and a mark-up of the connector list.
- Malcolm Ridgway to read the schedule and say yes, no or not yet.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The security review could move the 14 Feb 2025 signature date if the IT contact and questionnaire arrive late.
- No return figure was promised, so the board case rests on a baseline still to be agreed.
- How branch and account views overlap in access roles is unresolved until the first workshops.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Enterprise scope covers all five sources Deepa listed, with SSO and an executive sponsor.
- The on-site training day add-on may follow after the pilot branches.
Transcript
Lewis KerrHello, can you both hear me all right? I've got you on the screen but I can't tell whether it's me or the connection.
Deepa ChauhanLoud and clear, Lewis. Good afternoon.
Malcolm RidgwayAfternoon. Sorry, I'm in the car park at the depot, so if I go quiet it's the wind. Is it just the three of us?- Lewis KerrJust the three. Daniel, who'll look after you on the customer success side once you're live, isn't on today. He'll pick things up when the paperwork is done. No point him sitting through a pricing conversation.
- Malcolm RidgwaySensible. First things first. What has changed since the last one?
- Lewis KerrFair question. Three things. We've taken what Deepa's team showed us about how the branches and credit control look at an account, and we've turned it into a scoped proposal for Enterprise. We've been through the connectors you want first. And we've got a date to work to, which is Friday 14 February 2025 for signature. So that's what I'd like to confirm today: that Enterprise is what you want to buy, and that mid-February is still the date you want it done by.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I say the one thing I need from this call before we go any further?
- Lewis KerrPlease.
- Deepa ChauhanI need Malcolm to be able to say yes or no to this with the schedule in front of him. Not a headline number, not a deck. The actual schedule. Because if he says yes, I can start getting credit control and the regional directors lined up. If it's a maybe, I can't.
- Malcolm RidgwayThat's fair. I don't sign what I haven't read.
- Lewis KerrUnderstood, and that's how I'd want it. So let me walk you through what's in the proposal, and then we'll get to the money, because I know that's where Malcolm will go.
- Malcolm RidgwayI will.
- Lewis KerrRight. The idea, as we discussed, is one place where a branch manager, a key-account manager and someone in credit control all see the same trade account. Orders, disputes, the calls that have been logged, the emails, the invoices and what's overdue. At the moment each of those lives in a different system and somebody reconciles them by hand, usually just before a meeting.
- Deepa ChauhanUsually just after the meeting, in my experience, when someone has been told something that turned out not to be true.
- Lewis KerrHa. Yes. So it's built inside your own Snowflake account. That's the point I'd flag for Malcolm. The data doesn't go to us and sit somewhere else. It stays in your environment, under your controls, and the brain sits on top of it.
- Malcolm RidgwaySay that again. It stays where?
- Lewis KerrIn your Snowflake account. It's yours, you hold the keys. We build and run the layer inside it. If you ended the contract, the data is still where it always was.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood. That matters to the credit insurer. They ask where the debtor data goes. I'd rather the answer was nowhere.
- Deepa ChauhanWhich is a question I'd want in writing too, so I can hand it to them without paraphrasing.
- Lewis KerrNoted. I'll put a short paragraph on data location into the proposal so you can lift it straight out. Let me write that down. Data location, for the insurer.
- Lewis KerrSo on scope. Enterprise is company-wide. That gives you single sign-on and user provisioning, which I think Deepa's IT colleagues asked about, and an executive sponsor on our side. It also covers the security review, which for a company your size we do as part of the engagement rather than as a separate bill.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, that was the first question from IT. Whether branch managers log in with what they already use.
- Lewis KerrThey would. Single sign-on through your own identity provider, so when someone leaves and their account is switched off, the brain switches off with it.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd what they see. This is the one I keep coming back to. Which account, which branch? A manager in one branch shouldn't be browsing another branch's credit position, and equally a key-account manager needs the whole account across every branch it trades with.
- Lewis KerrRight. That's a permissions question, and I want to be careful here, because I don't want to promise you something from memory that turns out to be more nuanced. What I can say is that access follows the roles you define, and we'll set those with you during the build. The detail of how a branch view and an account view overlap is something we'd agree in the first workshops, not something I'd want to settle on this call.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. I'd rather hear that than a yes I'd have to walk back to the regional directors.
- Malcolm RidgwayMm. Lewis, I'll interrupt. Not the features. I'll leave those to Deepa. The cost of that is?
- Lewis KerrOf course. The deal total is £146,500. All figures I give you are exclusive of VAT, and that will be stated on the order form.
- Malcolm RidgwayIs that a year?
- Lewis KerrNo, and I'm glad you asked, because it's easy to misread. It's the total value of the deal. The annual subscription and the one-off implementation fee are separate lines in the order form, and I'll set them out separately so you can see each one. I'd rather not split it out from memory on a call, because you'd want the split exact.
- Malcolm RidgwayPut it in writing.
- Lewis KerrI'll send that over today. The subscription line, the implementation line, the payment terms, and the VAT position on each.
- Malcolm RidgwayAnd the payment terms. When do I pay what?
- Lewis KerrThe subscription is invoiced annually in advance, with quarterly available if you ask for it. The implementation is a fixed fee, so there's no meter running. I'll show the invoicing schedule in the proposal rather than describe it, so you have the dates against the amounts.
- Malcolm RidgwayQuarterly. I'd ask for that. Cash is cash. What does quarterly cost me over annual?
- Lewis KerrTo put a number on it properly I'd need to check the pricebook rather than guess. My understanding is that there's no change in the subscription itself, but I won't state that as fact until I've confirmed it. That'll be in the same email.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood answer. Most people would have guessed.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I ask what the implementation actually involves? Because that's the part I'll be living with. I've done system rollouts before and the fee is never the real cost. It's my team's time.
- Lewis KerrThat's the honest framing. So there's a build phase on our side, connecting your systems and loading the history. And there's a part that needs people from your side: someone who knows each source system, someone to check that what the brain says about an account matches what your people know to be true. For you, Deepa, I'd expect that to be the bulk of it.
- Deepa ChauhanWhich sources first? You asked last time, and I said CRM and accounting, and then I went away and thought I'd been too narrow.
- Lewis KerrTell me what you've landed on.
- Deepa ChauhanThe CRM, because that's the account list. The accounting system, because that's invoices and what's overdue, which is Malcolm's whole world. The call recorder the key-account managers use. The helpdesk, because disputes about deliveries come through there. And the shared mailboxes the credit controllers use, because half of what happens on a stop is in an email.
- Lewis KerrThat's a good set, and it's what I'd have recommended. Enterprise has room for all of those and more. I'd sequence them rather than switch everything on at once, so the accounting system and the CRM come first, because that's where you'll prove the value to Malcolm fastest.
- Malcolm RidgwayProve it how?
- Lewis KerrGood question. What would you want to be able to see in the first weeks that you can't see now?
- Malcolm RidgwayAccounts on stop that a branch is still selling to. Accounts where a dispute is holding up payment and nobody in credit control knows. Accounts where the insurer's limit is close and sales is pushing for more. I get that picture in a spreadsheet once a month. By then it's old.
- Deepa ChauhanLet's get credit control in the room for that. Because they'll tell you the spreadsheet is the best they can do, and they're not wrong. It's the best that can be done with the systems separate.
- Lewis KerrThat's what I'd suggest as the first piece of work. A session with credit control, before the build starts, where they tell us the five questions they ask most often about an account. We build the early value around those, not around what we think is clever.
- Malcolm RidgwayAnd a return I can show the board. Not a feeling. If I go to them and say we spent this money, what do I say we got?
- Lewis KerrHonestly, I can't give you a figure for that today, and I'd be wary of anyone who did. What I can do is help you decide what to measure before we start, so there's a baseline. How long it takes to answer an account question now. How often a branch finds out about a stop late. Then you have a before and an after, and the number is yours, not ours.
- Malcolm RidgwayHm. A baseline. I like that more than a promise.
- Deepa ChauhanShow me where that number comes from, every time. That's what I tell the regions. If the brain says an account owes something, there has to be a trail back to the invoice.
- Lewis KerrThat's how it's designed. Answers point back to the source record, so a credit controller can click through to the invoice or the email behind it. It's one of the things that tends to build trust with people who are sceptical at the start.
- Deepa ChauhanSceptical is my regional directors. They've been promised dashboards before.
- Lewis KerrThen I'd be careful what you promise them. Enterprise includes the dashboards builder, so they can be built, but I'd start them with questions and answers, and let the dashboards follow when people have seen it work.
- Deepa ChauhanAgreed. I'm not telling anyone a feature exists until I've seen it myself.
- Malcolm RidgwayBack to the paper. Discount. Is there one?
- Lewis KerrThere is some room, yes, and it applies to the first term only. It isn't a permanent reduction. After that you're on the list price for the tier.
- Malcolm RidgwayHow much?
- Lewis KerrI'd rather show you in the proposal than say a percentage down the line, because the base matters, and I know you won't take a percentage without it. It will be stated as an amount against the subscription line, with the list price beside it.
- Malcolm RidgwayCorrect. A percentage of what? That's the only question that matters.
- Lewis KerrExactly. Subscription, not the implementation. I'll make that explicit.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood. And what happens in year two?
- Lewis KerrThe discount ends and you renew at the list price in force at that point. Your customer success contact will raise it with you ahead of time, and I'll put the renewal mechanics in the proposal so there's no surprise. Renewals that surprise people are the ones that go badly.
- Malcolm RidgwayI'll look at that paragraph first.
- Lewis KerrFair enough. I'll make it easy to find.
- Deepa ChauhanCan we talk about the security review? Because that's the part that can slip the date, and I'd like us to be honest about the timetable.
- Lewis KerrYes. Please. So with Enterprise there's a security review, and we support it. Your IT and information security people send us their questionnaire, or we send ours, and we answer it. Where it goes wrong is when that starts late. If the questionnaire only arrives the week before signing, the date moves.
- Deepa ChauhanSo I should get it to IT this week.
- Lewis KerrIf you can. Even a named contact in IT would help. I'll send a short note you can forward to them, explaining what we'll ask for and what we'll provide.
- Deepa ChauhanDo that. I'll forward it today. I'd rather they were annoyed with me now than with you in February.
- Malcolm RidgwayWho from my side signs the order form? Because I'll want the insurer's view on one clause, I think. Not the price. The data.
- Lewis KerrYou would, as the economic buyer. The order form sits under our master agreement, and I'll send both so you can read the whole of it, not just the schedule. If the insurer wants to see the data clause, send me their questions and I'll route them to the right person on our side.
- Malcolm RidgwayBoth documents. Not just the order form. Good.
- Deepa ChauhanOne more from me. Training. I have branch managers who haven't enjoyed a new system since the last one went wrong. Do they get shown how to use it, or do they get a login and a link?
- Lewis KerrThey get shown. Daniel's team runs training sessions, and for a group like yours I'd propose starting with a small set of branches as a pilot, so you learn what confuses people before it goes to everyone. There's also an on-site training day as an add-on, if you decide you want somebody at a regional meeting in person. I'd hold that until after the pilot.
- Deepa ChauhanA pilot suits me. The regional directors will choose their own branches, and they'll choose the keen ones, and then I'll ask for one who isn't keen.
- Lewis KerrHa. That's the right instinct. The reluctant one will tell you the truth.
- Malcolm RidgwayAlright. Let me say back what I think I've heard. Enterprise. Total deal value £146,500, and that is not an annual figure. Annual subscription and implementation shown separately. Discount stated as an amount, on the subscription, first term only. Quarterly invoicing to be priced. The security review runs alongside. Is that right?
- Lewis KerrThat's exactly right. I'd add one item. VAT shown on each line.
- Malcolm RidgwayYes. VAT on each line. And you'll tell me what's not included.
- Lewis KerrI will. Anything that's an add-on, like extra users or connectors beyond the Enterprise allowance, or data residency, or the on-site day, I'll list as excluded unless you tell me you want it. I'd rather you see the edges of it.
- Malcolm RidgwayAnd the cost of those, if I did?
- Lewis KerrI'll include a short price list for the add-ons with the proposal. Not from memory. From the pricebook.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I add a thing about timing? Because I'd like to be realistic about when the build can begin. If we sign on Friday 14 February 2025, I'm not starting a workshop that same afternoon. My team has a systems freeze at the end of the quarter, and I'd want us to schedule the first sessions around it.
- Lewis KerrThat's useful to know. A freeze matters, because we'll need people from your side available. If I can see the freeze dates, I'll build the plan around them. I'd rather have a plan that works than one that looks quick.
- Deepa ChauhanI'll send you the dates. And there's a second thing. The CRM owner for the key accounts is someone I'd want in the first workshop, but he's only part time on this. Is that going to cause us a problem?
- Lewis KerrNot a problem, but it's something to plan for. The usual pattern is a few focused sessions rather than a long block, and the person who knows the CRM comes to the ones about the CRM. We'd agree who comes to which, at the start, so nobody's sitting through something that doesn't concern them.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. That I can sell to him.
- Malcolm RidgwayLewis. I want to be direct. If I sign this, and in six months the thing's stale, the data's old, and nobody uses it, what then?
- Lewis KerrThat's the real risk, and I'd rather name it than skip it. It tends to happen when two things go wrong. The data stops refreshing, or the person who championed it moves on and nobody picks it up. On the first, the nightly refresh is part of the service, and Enterprise carries a credit if freshness is missed. On the second, that's why we recommend an executive sponsor on your side and one on ours, so it doesn't rest on one person.
- Malcolm RidgwaySo I'm the sponsor.
- Lewis KerrI'd suggest you and Deepa together. You for the money and the board. Deepa for the day to day.
- Deepa ChauhanI'm happy with that. And I'd chair a monthly review of how it's being used, with credit control and sales both in it. That's how it stays alive. I've done it with the account data already.
- Malcolm RidgwayThen I'll want that review to show me usage. Who's asking what. If one person's asking everything, that's a risk, not a success.
- Lewis KerrThat's exactly how we read it. Questions asked is the best measure of value, and who asks them matters as much as how many. Daniel will bring that to the reviews.
- Malcolm RidgwayRight. I have a thing at three. Anything else from you, Lewis, that I need to decide?
- Lewis KerrTwo things. First, whether you want me to price quarterly invoicing as an option alongside annual, so you can compare them on paper. Second, whether the order form should carry a start date for the connectors you've listed, because we can commit to getting named connectors live within an agreed time, and that's worth having written down.
- Malcolm RidgwayBoth. Yes to both. Quarterly alongside annual. And the commitments in writing, with the connectors named. If it's promised, it's in the schedule.
- Lewis KerrDone. I'll name the connectors from Deepa's list: the CRM, the accounting system, the call recorder, the helpdesk and the shared mailboxes. And I'll put the timings against each, so there's one line per source.
- Deepa ChauhanWould you check the list with me before it goes in? Just so we haven't missed one, like a system the branches use that I've forgotten.
- Lewis KerrOf course. I'll send the draft schedule to you first, and you can mark anything that's missing before it goes to Malcolm.
- Malcolm RidgwayHold on. Before it goes to me. I'd rather see it as soon as it's ready. Copy me.
- Lewis KerrThen I'll send it to you both at the same time, and Deepa, you can mark it up and reply to everyone.
- Deepa ChauhanThat works. Thanks, Lewis.
- Malcolm RidgwayIs there a reference I could talk to? Another distributor, someone who lives on trade credit.
- Lewis KerrThere may well be, but I won't offer a name without asking them first, and I won't discuss another customer's terms with you. What I can do is ask whether someone in a similar position would be willing to speak, and come back to you.
- Malcolm RidgwayThat's the right way round. Do that.
- Deepa ChauhanSo just to be sure I understand the sequence. Proposal and schedules come over today. IT gets the security note from me this week. Malcolm reads the schedule and the master agreement. Then we meet again and he says yes, no or not yet.
- Lewis KerrThat's it. And if it's not yet, I want to know what's missing, not just that it's not yet. Better a clear no than a slow maybe, for both of us.
- Malcolm RidgwayAgreed. How long do you need to get the documents to me?
- Lewis KerrThe proposal and the draft order form will be with you today. The add-on prices and the quarterly option I'll send as soon as I've checked them against the pricebook, which should be tomorrow at the latest.
- Malcolm RidgwayFine. I'll read the schedule properly at the weekend if it's there by then. Not before. I won't have the time.
- Lewis KerrIt'll be there well before the weekend.
- Deepa ChauhanOne last question from me, and it's a small one. When we talk about the pilot branches, who from your side is in the room? Is it you, or Daniel, or someone else?
- Lewis KerrDaniel will lead the adoption side and be your day to day contact. I stay involved on the commercial terms, so if you've got an order form question, that's me. For the build there'll be our technical team, and I'll introduce them once the contract's signed.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. I'd like to meet Daniel before we sign, if that's possible. Not for a sales call. Just so I know who I'll be ringing when something's wrong.
- Lewis KerrThat's reasonable, and I'd encourage it. I'll arrange a short introduction in the next week or so. Half an hour, nothing formal.
- Deepa ChauhanThanks.
- Malcolm RidgwayOne more from me. Then I must go. Support. If a branch can't see an account at eight in the morning, who answers?
- Lewis KerrEnterprise has the fastest first response of the tiers, and there's a named-engineer option if you want to add premium support. I won't quote the hours from memory. The proposal will have the service levels set out exactly, and I'll mark which of them are standard and which are the add-on, so you can decide with the facts.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood. Debtors don't wait.
- Lewis KerrNo. And the refresh matters more to you than the speed of the answer. If the overnight refresh hasn't finished, a morning view is wrong, even though the system is up. We'll show that in the schedule as its own point.
- Malcolm RidgwayAvailability is not freshness. Fine. That's the distinction I'd want.
- Lewis KerrExactly that. I'll keep it plain.
- Deepa ChauhanMalcolm, you're at the depot. Are you late?
- Malcolm RidgwayI'm fine for five more minutes. Go on, Lewis, anything you haven't got from me that you need?
- Lewis KerrTwo things I'd ask for in return. The name of whoever in IT will handle the security questionnaire, and the dates of your systems freeze, so the plan is realistic. Deepa, you've both of those?
- Deepa ChauhanI'll send both tomorrow. The IT contact I know already. The freeze dates I'll have to confirm with the infrastructure team.
- Lewis KerrPerfect. Then to recap actions. From me: proposal, draft order form and the master agreement today, with the subscription, implementation and discount shown separately and VAT on each line. The add-on prices and quarterly option by tomorrow. A note for IT you can forward. An introduction to Daniel. And I'll ask about a reference. From you, Deepa: IT contact, freeze dates and a mark-up of the connector list. From Malcolm: reading the schedule and telling us whether it's yes, no or not yet.
- Malcolm RidgwayNot yet is not an answer I like giving. But I'll be clear when I give it.
- Lewis KerrThat's all I'm asking.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd we're still working to Friday 14 February 2025. Just so it's said.
- Lewis KerrStill that date. If anything threatens it, the security review being the most likely, I'll tell you straight away rather than at the end.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood. That's what I wanted from this.
- Deepa ChauhanSame. I'm glad we got the money on the table with the right framing. I couldn't have explained the total to the regional directors if it had been left vague.
- Lewis KerrIt's worth being clear. Easier now than in a contract review.
- Malcolm RidgwayAnything about the board? If I need to explain why we're doing this, is there something you can give me? One page.
- Lewis KerrI can draft one page for you, setting out what you're buying, what it replaces, and the baseline measures we discussed. You'd edit it, because the board's language is yours. I'll include it with the proposal.
- Malcolm RidgwayDo that. I'll change it, but it's easier to change something than to start.
- Deepa ChauhanI'd like to see that too, so what I say to the regions matches what he says to the board.
- Lewis KerrThen it goes to both of you. I'll mark it as a draft for your changes.
- Malcolm RidgwayRight. I need to go. Thank you, both. Lewis, send it over.
- Lewis KerrI will. Today. Thanks for your time, Malcolm.
- Malcolm RidgwayGoodbye.
- Deepa ChauhanHe's gone. Is there anything you'd flag that you couldn't say in front of him?
- Lewis KerrNothing hidden, Deepa. If I'd say it to him, I'd say it to you. The one point is the security review. Get that contact to me early and the date holds. Leave it and it's the thing that moves.
- Deepa ChauhanUnderstood. I'll do it this afternoon, after I've looked at what you send. Let's not leave it to the weekend.
- Lewis KerrThanks. And the pilot branches. Have a think about who you'd choose, and who you'd choose if you were being awkward about it.
- Deepa ChauhanI'll bring both lists. Mine and the honest one.
- Lewis KerrThat's the one I'd like. Right, I'll let you get on. Speak soon.
- Deepa ChauhanThanks, Lewis. Speak soon. Bye.
- Lewis KerrBye, Deepa.
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