Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Kickoff
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 6 Mar 2025 09:15
Kickoff for Merriott Lyle Distribution on Enterprise at £116k a year. The customer is cautiously positive. Account matching, a late branch export and a single admin are the open worries, and Gareth Pugh will proceed subject to a written access model.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Kickoff for Merriott Lyle Distribution on Enterprise at £116k a year. The customer is cautiously positive. Account matching, a late branch export and a single admin are the open worries, and Gareth Pugh will proceed subject to a written access model.
What happened: Callie Brennan ran the kickoff with Daniel Okafor. Deepa Chauhan, Tariq Saleem and Gareth Pugh covered connectors, security and who owns what. Deepa's stated need was a clear picture of who does what and by when.
Customer view: Deepa says the regional directors are cautiously positive but wary of another system. Gareth is comfortable to start once the access model is written down and sent before any credentials move.
Commercial: This is Enterprise, with single sign-on and SCIM to set up, and the board will ask what the brain has replaced. Deepa wants fewer spreadsheets going round by email, and Tariq will give a before count as the baseline for a value case.
Watch: The branch system export can run late, so the 07:00 refresh could show yesterday's file. Tariq is the only admin, and the call recorder credentials sit with sales.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Enterprise kickoff and setup
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Tariq Saleem to send the read-only details, the list of accounts with missing prefixes and a couple of weeks of export completion times.
- Callie Brennan to send Gareth Pugh the setup note with the access model before any credentials move.
- Daniel Okafor to agree a date with Malcolm and credit control by the end of the week.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The branch system export can run late, so the nightly refresh may show yesterday's file.
- Tariq Saleem is the only admin, so a stopped connector has no cover while he is away.
- Account keys are not clean between the CRM and branch system, which could show duplicates to regional directors.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Train a second admin by the end of the implementation to deepen ownership inside the customer.
- Use a spreadsheet count as a before and after baseline for a value case to the board.
- Roll out single sign-on and SCIM with branch, key-account and credit control roles under Enterprise.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforGood morning, everyone, and thank you for making the time. I can see Deepa and Tariq. Is Gareth with us yet, or is he still on his way in?
Gareth PughI'm here. Sorry, I was fighting with the meeting link. Can you hear me all right?- Daniel OkaforLoud and clear. Lovely, that's all five of us. Callie's here from our side as well, she'll be running the implementation with you.
Callie BrennanMorning all. Thanks, Daniel. Before we start, how was the journey in? Deepa, you said last week you were coming down from head office in Birmingham?
Deepa ChauhanI'm in the office, yes, but the trains were awful, so I'm on my second coffee already. It's fine. Honestly I'm just glad we've got everybody in one call at last.
Tariq SaleemMorning. Yes, same here, I've got my coffee and the load logs open, so I'm ready when you are.- Callie BrennanBrilliant. So here's the plan for the next hour. First, ten minutes on what you've bought and what success looks like for you. Then the connectors, one by one. Then security and access with Gareth. Then who owns what, and dates. And I'll leave a few minutes at the end for anything we've missed. Does that work?
- Deepa ChauhanThat works. The one thing I need from today, really, is a clear picture of who does what and by when. Everything else I can work out.
- Callie BrennanGood, that's exactly where we'll finish. Daniel, do you want to start with the context?
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Just to set the scene, and Deepa, stop me if I get any of this wrong. You signed on Friday 28 Feb 2025, so you've been customers for about a week. You're on the Enterprise tier, £116,500 a year, and that covers two hundred licensed users. The idea is that branch teams, the key-account managers and credit control all look at the same trade account and see its orders, disputes, calls and invoices together.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's it. Which account, which branch, and what's actually happening with it. At the moment a branch manager rings credit control, credit control rings the account manager, and by the time anyone answers the customer has been on the phone to three different people.
- Daniel OkaforRight, and that's the story we keep coming back to. How is the team finding the idea so far? I know you've spoken to some of the regional directors.
- Deepa ChauhanCautiously positive. They like the sound of it. They're a bit wary of another system, if I'm honest. I've told them it isn't another system, it's a way of asking questions of the ones we already have. But they'll believe it when they see it on their own accounts.
- Callie BrennanThat's fair, and it's why the first refresh matters so much. Before we switch on the refresh, I want every source mapped and checked, so that the first thing a regional director sees is something they recognise. Not a pile of duplicates.
- Tariq SaleemDuplicates are my worry, to be honest. The branch system and the CRM don't agree on what a trade account is. A customer can be one record in the CRM and three in the branch system, one per site, sometimes with slightly different spellings.
- Callie BrennanMm. That's a mapping question, and a good one to raise now. What I need from your side is the field you currently treat as the account key in each system. If there's a shared account number, we match on that. If not, we need to agree a fallback.
- Tariq SaleemThere is a shared account number, but it's not clean. Some older accounts were keyed by hand and have a prefix missing. I can export you a list of the ones I know about.
- Callie BrennanThat would be ideal. Even a rough list helps. We'd rather see the ugly cases up front than discover them after the refresh.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd Tariq, just so we're clear, nobody is blaming the branches for that. It's the way the accounts were set up years ago.
- Tariq SaleemNo, absolutely not. It's history, not carelessness. I'd just rather fix it once, properly.
- Daniel OkaforAgreed. Callie, perhaps you could walk through the connectors, and we can tick them off as we go?
- Callie BrennanYes. So, as I have it from the order form, there are a handful of sources for the first wave. The CRM, the branch system that holds orders and deliveries, the accounting system for invoices and credit control, the helpdesk, the call recorder, and then the shared mailboxes for the key-account teams. Have I missed any, or got any wrong?
- Tariq SaleemThat's right, but I'd say the mailboxes are a second wave. I'm not comfortable opening those until Gareth has had a look. And the call recorder, the licence is held by sales, so I'll need to ask them for the admin credentials.
- Gareth PughCan I come in on the mailboxes? I'm happy to look at them, but I'd want to know exactly which mailboxes, and whether the connector reads everything in them or only what we scope.
- Callie BrennanGood question. It reads only what you scope. We agree the list of mailboxes, you approve it in writing, and nothing is connected without that. I never start a connector without written access, so you'll always see the request before anything moves.
- Gareth PughGood. That's what I wanted to hear. And where does the data physically sit? I've had the answer from the sales conversations, but I'd like it from the people doing the work.
- Callie BrennanIn your own Snowflake account. We build and run the brain inside it. So the data doesn't leave your environment, and you hold the keys, essentially. Our people get in with the access you grant, and you can see what they touched.
- Gareth PughRight. That simplifies a lot of what I'd otherwise have to ask. I'll still want the access model written down, who at your end gets in, how, and for how long.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. We'll put that in the setup note, and Callie will send it to you, Gareth, before any credentials are exchanged. Just to close the loop on that one: it comes to you first, not after.
- Gareth PughThank you. I'd rather be early and bored than late and worried.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I ask about the order of things? Which connector goes first? Because if I'm going to tell the regional directors something, I want it to be the thing that makes them sit up.
- Callie BrennanI'd start with the CRM and the accounting system together. Those two give you the account and its invoices, which is the core of what credit control cares about. Then the branch system for orders and deliveries. The helpdesk and the calls after that.
- Tariq SaleemThe accounting system is the easy one. I've already got a read-only account set up for it, I just haven't sent you the details. The branch system is the awkward one.
- Callie BrennanWhich connector is awkward, and what makes it awkward? I'd rather hear it now.
- Tariq SaleemIt's an older system and it does a nightly export to a file location rather than offering anything live. The export runs in the small hours and sometimes it's late. If it's late, whatever is reading it gets yesterday's file.
- Callie BrennanOkay, that's useful, and it's not unusual. We can read the export file once it lands. The nightly refresh is meant to be complete by 07:00 on business days, so what matters is that your export finishes comfortably before that. Do you know roughly when it normally completes?
- Tariq SaleemI'll check the load log. I don't want to guess. I believe it's usually done well before five, but there are nights when it isn't, and I'd rather give you the real pattern.
- Callie BrennanPerfect, thank you. If you can send me a couple of weeks of completion times, I'll set the refresh to wait for the file rather than run on a clock.
- Deepa ChauhanSorry, I'm going to be the non-technical one here. If the file's late, what does a branch manager see in the morning?
- Callie BrennanYesterday's picture for that source, and the brain tells them it's from yesterday. It doesn't pretend. The risk is more that people forget to look at that label, which is why I like to wait for the file and keep it rare.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. That's the answer I can give them. Show me where that number comes from, they'll say, and I want to be able to point at the source and the time.
- Daniel OkaforAnd that's built in, Deepa. Every answer carries its source and when it was last refreshed, so you won't have to take our word for it.
- Deepa ChauhanLovely. Sorry, Gareth, you were about to say something.
- Gareth PughOnly that I'll need to see the single sign-on set up before anyone outside this call gets a login. We have the identity provider, it's all in place, I just need to know what you need from me.
- Callie BrennanRight, so for Enterprise we do single sign-on and SCIM provisioning, so users are created and removed from your directory rather than by hand. What I need from your side is the metadata for the application, a named person to approve it, and the groups you want mapped to roles.
- Gareth PughGroups, yes. I'd want at least three roles. Branch users who see their own branch only, key-account managers who see their portfolio, and credit control who see across the lot.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd Malcolm will want to see the credit control view before it goes anywhere near the regions. I'd like him in a session before we open it up.
- Callie BrennanNoted. That's a sensible gate. We can do a working session with credit control on the test data before the wider rollout. Daniel, can you make sure that's on the plan?
- Daniel OkaforI will. I'll come back to you by the end of the week with a date that suits his diary, Deepa.
- Deepa ChauhanThank you. He's quite particular about money questions, so I'd rather he saw it early.
- Tariq SaleemCallie, one more technical thing, while I think of it. The admin side. At the moment it's me, and I'm one person. If I'm on holiday and a connector stops, nobody can touch it.
- Callie BrennanYes, and I'd have raised it anyway. Leaving a customer's admin able to run things alone is the whole point of the handover, so I'd like a second admin trained by the end of the implementation. Do you have someone in mind?
- Tariq SaleemThere's one of my analysts who'd be good. I'll ask her. I don't want to name her before she's said yes.
- Callie BrennanCompletely fair. If she says yes, I'll include her in the connector walkthroughs so she sees them being built, not just the finished thing.
- Deepa ChauhanCan we talk about what we see at the end? I mean, what does done look like? Because I'll be asked, by the board if nobody else.
- Daniel OkaforGood, let's do it properly. From our side I'd say three things. The connectors are all live and loading every night. The first group of users, with credit control first, are actually asking questions and getting answers they trust. And you can say to your board, in plain words, what it's replaced. Does that sound right to you?
- Deepa ChauhanIt does. I'd add one. I want fewer spreadsheets going round by email. If I can count those, even roughly, that's the story.
- Tariq SaleemI'd second that. I can give you a rough count of the recurring ones now, so we have a before and after.
- Callie BrennanThat's a smart baseline. Send it when you can, and we'll note it in the plan as a measure, not a promise.
- Deepa ChauhanAgreed. I'm not promising the regions anything we can't deliver. If a feature isn't there yet, I'll say so.
- Gareth PughOne more from me, then I'll let you get on. Where do the logs live? If something odd happens at three in the morning, I want to be able to see who or what did it.
- Callie BrennanIn your Snowflake account too, so they're yours. I'll show you where in the setup note, and Tariq can point your monitoring at them if you want alerts.
- Gareth PughGood. Then I think I'm comfortable to start, subject to the written access model.
- Daniel OkaforThank you, Gareth. That's really helpful. Callie, shall you read back the actions so we're all looking at the same list?
- Callie BrennanYes. So, Tariq sends me the read-only details for the accounting system and the CRM, plus the list of accounts with missing prefixes, and a couple of weeks of export completion times from the branch system. I send Gareth the setup note with the access model before any credentials move. Gareth approves the mailbox list in writing, and the single sign-on metadata and role groups. Tariq asks his analyst about being second admin, and checks who holds the call recorder credentials. Daniel gets a date with Malcolm and credit control. Anything I've missed?
- Deepa ChauhanOnly the spreadsheet count, which is mine and Tariq's. And I'll put a short note to the regional directors saying what's happening, so they're not surprised.
- Callie BrennanGreat, I've added that. And on dates, I'd like the first connectors loading by the end of next week, with the branch system the week after, so we're ready for a first look at the data with credit control soon after. Does that feel realistic to everyone?
- Tariq SaleemIt's tight but it's doable, as long as the credentials come from the call recorder owners in time. That's the one I can't control.
- Daniel OkaforThen let's move the call recorder to the end of the sequence so it doesn't hold anything else up. If it lands earlier, wonderful.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, do that. I'd rather have the core working than everything half done.
- Daniel OkaforWell said. I'll be checking in weekly with Deepa while Callie runs the build, so if anything slips you'll hear it from me first, and we'll agree a new date together. How's that sound?
- Deepa ChauhanThat's what I'd hoped for. Thank you both.
- Callie BrennanThanks, everyone. I'll send the written plan and the setup note this afternoon. Speak soon.
- Tariq SaleemCheers all. I'll get those details over today.
- Gareth PughThanks all. Good call.
- Deepa ChauhanThanks, Daniel, thanks, Callie. Bye for now.
- Daniel OkaforBest wishes, all. Take care.
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