Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Check In
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Merriott Lyle Distribution · 24 Jun 2026 13:00
On 24 Jun 2026 Deepa Chauhan said she has been asked quietly whether BG-Demo is worth the money. Daniel Okafor agreed a usage cut, a short value summary and a small branch pilot before any renewal talk.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026On 24 Jun 2026 Deepa Chauhan said she has been asked quietly whether BG-Demo is worth the money. Daniel Okafor agreed a usage cut, a short value summary and a small branch pilot before any renewal talk.
What happened: Deepa Chauhan wanted to know how to get branch managers reaching for the brain. Daniel Okafor reported steady usage, three quiet tickets and mostly head office activity.
Customer view: Credit control love the single account view. Branch managers say they have no time and a couple do not trust it.
Commercial: Deepa has been asked quietly whether the brain is worth the money and wants modest, true examples. Daniel confirmed £128k matches the order form and invoices, with the renewal conversation due in the autumn.
Watch: Single sign-on may not be in use by some branches. IT may tidy shared drives, which could break a connector.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Value question, branch adoption
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor to send the usage cut by team and branch group, a single sign-on check and a half-page on connectors by the end of the following week.
- Deepa Chauhan to send a short list of branches, the next review date, an introduction to her new colleague and IT's plans for shared drives.
- Daniel Okafor to draft the short value summary, then run the first branch session with Deepa before the renewal conversation.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Deepa has been asked whether BG-Demo is worth what the business pays, and has no concrete answer yet.
- Usage is mostly head office, with branch managers saying they have no time or do not trust it.
- IT may tidy shared drives without notice, which could stop a connector loading.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A twenty-minute branch session built on one question could lift branch use and fill Enterprise licence headroom.
- A new colleague now knows the admin side, which reduces the dependence on Deepa alone.
- The executive sponsor and on-site training day are parked but may be wanted once the pilot shows results.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Deepa, can you hear me alright? Thank you for making the time today.
Deepa ChauhanHi Daniel, yes, loud and clear. Sorry, I've got half a sandwich in one hand, it's been one of those mornings that ran into the afternoon.- Daniel OkaforNot at all, that's the joy of a one o'clock slot. Is it just the two of us, or is anyone else joining?
- Deepa ChauhanJust us. I thought we'd keep this one short and practical. I'll fill people in afterwards.
- Daniel OkaforPerfect. How's the week been otherwise? Still hot up there? We've had it muggy all week in London, nobody's sleeping.
- Deepa ChauhanSame here, honestly. Birmingham feels like a greenhouse. Builders' merchants in a heatwave is actually quite busy, so the branches are flat out, which is good for trade and bad for people's patience.
- Daniel OkaforHa, I can imagine. Well, I'll try not to add to the pile. What's the one thing you need from today, so I make sure we get to it?
- Deepa ChauhanOne thing. Right. I want to leave knowing how we get more branch managers actually using the brain. Not me telling them it exists, them reaching for it when a trade customer rings up with a query.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a good one to start with, and it fits with what I've pulled together. Let me share the usage picture first and then we can talk about the branches properly. Give me a second, I've got it in another window.
- Deepa ChauhanTake your time. I'm only eating.
- Daniel OkaforRight, there we are. So, the headline. You're on Enterprise with two hundred licensed users. Over the last thirty days, the average number of people active in a given day has been sitting at around sixty or so, and that's up a few percent on the previous quarter.
- Deepa ChauhanSo up, but gently.
- Daniel OkaforGently, yes. Steady rather than dramatic. Nothing has fallen away, which I'm always glad to see, but I wouldn't tell you it's a surge either.
- Deepa ChauhanOkay. And that's, what, a bit under a third of the licences active on a typical day?
- Daniel OkaforAbout that, yes. Which, to be fair, for a business with branches that are out on the counter all day, I wouldn't read as bad. People don't sit in front of a screen the way head office does. But it does mean there's real headroom in what you've already paid for.
- Deepa ChauhanRight, and that's what I keep coming back to. Which account, which branch? Because an average hides who it is. If it's all key-account managers and credit control, that's one story. If it's branches, that's a different one.
- Daniel OkaforCompletely fair. From the activity I can see, most of it is head office, so the key-account side and credit control, with a thinner spread across branches. I don't want to overstate that, because I'd like to cut it properly by team before I put it in writing. But the direction of what you're saying matches what I'm seeing.
- Deepa ChauhanMm. That's what I suspected. Show me where that number comes from, though, when you do the cut. I'd like to see it by branch group, not just by team, because the regional directors will ask.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. I'll come back to you by the end of next week with it split by team and by branch group, and I'll note where the data's thin so nobody over-reads a small number.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. Thank you. That helps.
- Daniel OkaforShall I run through the support side quickly while I've got it up? Just to close the loop on that.
- Deepa ChauhanPlease. I know there were a few tickets, but I haven't looked at them myself.
- Daniel OkaforThree in the last thirty days. None of them high priority, nothing that held anyone up, and they've all been picked up well inside what your tier promises. They were mostly the sort of thing where someone wasn't sure how to do something, rather than something being broken.
- Deepa ChauhanThat sounds about right. Two of them were probably my team asking how to set up a saved view, I think. I did tell them to raise it rather than ring me.
- Daniel OkaforAnd that's exactly the right habit. Three tickets from a few hundred people is healthy, and it tells me people are poking at it. Silence would worry me more than that.
- Deepa ChauhanFair enough. Okay, so nothing on fire.
- Daniel OkaforNothing on fire. How is the team finding it, day to day? Not the numbers, what do you actually hear?
- Deepa ChauhanHonestly? Mixed, in a useful way. The ones who use it love it. The credit control lot in particular, when they're chasing an overdue account they can see the orders, the disputes, the last call and the invoices in one place, and they stopped emailing the branches to ask what happened. That was the whole point.
- Daniel OkaforThat's lovely to hear. That was the case you made for it at the start, wasn't it, one version of the account.
- Deepa ChauhanIt was. And then there's the branch managers, who say, quite reasonably, I haven't got time, I've got a queue at the trade counter. And a couple who say they don't trust it, which I think really means they haven't used it enough to trust it.
- Daniel OkaforMm. That's very common, and it's usually not about the product. It's that nobody's shown them the thing that matters to them in a couple of minutes.
- Deepa ChauhanRight, so that's it. What would make it matter to a branch manager? Because I could give them a training session, and half of them would nod and then go back to doing it the way they've always done it.
- Daniel OkaforI'd be cautious about a big session, actually. What tends to work, and this is from other customers with a lot of sites, is one question each person genuinely asks every week. For a branch manager, I'd guess it's something like, what's the position on this trade account before I agree a delivery or a credit extension. If they can get that answer in one go, they come back.
- Deepa ChauhanYes. That's it exactly. Is this account in dispute, are they paying on time, has anyone spoken to them recently. That's what they're guessing at now, and then it turns into rumour.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is the thing you've always wanted to avoid. So I'd build the session around that one question, using accounts from their own patch, and keep it short. Twenty minutes, not an afternoon.
- Deepa ChauhanTwenty minutes, I can sell that. Could you do it, or would it need to be me?
- Daniel OkaforI'd happily lead the first couple with you in the room, so they see it's yours and not something done to them. After that you could take it on, and I'd give you the outline. There's also an on-site training day available as an add-on if you wanted to do a proper push at some point, though I don't think you need it to start.
- Deepa ChauhanLet's not get ahead of ourselves with the add-ons. If it works with a few branches, I'll go back to the regional directors with evidence and then see. I'm not going to promise them anything before I know it does what I say.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a sensible way round to do it. So, a small group first. Which branches would you pick?
- Deepa ChauhanI'd want a mix. One or two that already have a good relationship with head office and are a bit curious, and one or two that are sceptical, because if it works for them it'll travel. I'll send you a short list. I'll need to ask the regional directors who they'd put forward.
- Daniel OkaforThat would be perfect. And if there's any particular trade accounts that are awkward at the moment, ones the branches argue about, those make the best examples.
- Deepa ChauhanOh, there are always a few. I'd rather not name them on a recording, but yes, I know the ones.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. Keep those for the session itself.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I raise something else while we're at it? The monthly account-data review. I chair it, as you know, with credit control and the regional directors.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Go on.
- Deepa ChauhanAt the moment it's the same four or five people who use the brain in that meeting, and the rest sit and listen. Let's get credit control in the room, properly, and let's get the regional directors looking at the screen rather than at a spreadsheet someone's exported. Is there a good way to run that off the brain itself?
- Daniel OkaforThere is, and it's probably the best single lever you've got. If the review itself runs from the brain, with the same views every month, then people see their own patch and they have a reason to look at it between meetings. Do you have a standing agenda?
- Deepa ChauhanLoosely. It drifts. It tends to follow whatever went wrong that month.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is normal, but it makes it hard for anyone to prepare. What if the first part is always the same, the accounts with disputes open, the accounts where the orders and the payments don't line up, and the accounts with no contact for a while, and then the rest is whatever's live that month?
- Deepa ChauhanThree things. I like three things. Disputes, payments against orders, and who's gone quiet.
- Daniel OkaforExactly that. And if you'd like, I can sit in on the next one, just to watch how it runs and help you set those views up beforehand. Not to take over, simply so it works first time.
- Deepa ChauhanI'd welcome that. It would also show the regional directors that this isn't just me being keen. When's the next one, let me think, it's early next month. I'll check the invite and send you the date.
- Daniel OkaforLovely, thank you.
- Daniel OkaforWhile we're on the bigger picture, can I ask something about the connectors? Has anything changed in the systems feeding the brain recently? A new version, a migration, anything the team has been planning?
- Deepa ChauhanNot that I know of on my side. The CRM is as it was. I think IT has been talking about tidying up some of the shared drives, but I haven't heard a date, and I'd expect them to tell me before they touched anything.
- Daniel OkaforThat's useful, thank you. If they do, will you let me know early? It's much easier to adjust a connector beforehand than to find out afterwards that something stopped loading.
- Deepa ChauhanI'll make a point of it. I'll put a note to myself to ask them.
- Daniel OkaforI can also give you a one-line summary of what each connector is feeding, if that helps when you speak to them. People tend to lose track.
- Deepa ChauhanYes please, that'd save me a conversation. Keep it plain, they're not going to read a long document.
- Daniel OkaforPlain it is. Half a page.
- Deepa ChauhanNow, the other thing I should probably say out loud. I've been asked, quietly, whether we're getting value for what we pay. It's not a complaint, it's the sort of question that comes up at the end of a financial year, and I want to have a better answer than, well, the credit control team like it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a very reasonable thing to be asked, and I'm glad you said it. I'd much rather we built the answer together than have you improvising it. What would be convincing to the people asking?
- Deepa ChauhanSomething concrete. Fewer disputes dragging on, quicker answers to account queries, branches not ringing head office to ask what's going on. I don't think there's a single number. I think it's two or three examples and some honest usage.
- Daniel OkaforThen let's do exactly that. I'll put together a short summary for you, how usage has moved, what the teams are asking it, and the examples you pick from credit control. You'd choose what goes in, and I'd be careful not to claim more than the data shows.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. Honest is the right word. I'd rather it was modest and true. And show me where each number comes from, same as before.
- Daniel OkaforAlways. Each figure will carry its source, so if someone challenges it you can point to it.
- Deepa ChauhanThank you. That takes some weight off.
- Daniel OkaforSince you've mentioned the financial year, I should just be open about the shape of the contract, so nothing sneaks up on you. You're on Enterprise, a hundred and twenty-seven thousand five hundred pounds a year, so £127,500, and that matches what's on the order form and what's been invoiced. Nothing has moved there.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, that's what I have as well. And paid, I assume, since finance haven't said anything.
- Daniel OkaforNothing outstanding on our side at all. The term runs to the end of February, so there's plenty of road. I'll bring the renewal conversation to you in the autumn, well ahead of the notice period, so you're not hearing about it in a rush.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. I'd rather have that conversation with the value summary in my hand than without it. And I'll say now, anything on money goes through our finance side and I'll keep Lewis in the loop, I'm not going to negotiate around anyone.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood, and that's how I'd like it too. Lewis looks after the commercial side with me. I'm only there to make sure the adoption story is in good order.
- Deepa ChauhanFine. So the order is, the usage cut, the value summary, then the renewal conversation after that.
- Daniel OkaforThat's the order. I won't skip ahead.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I ask about the executive sponsor thing? I remember it being in the Enterprise package. I don't think I've ever really made use of it.
- Daniel OkaforIt is, yes. It's there for exactly this kind of moment, when you want someone senior at our end to take an interest in how the business gets on with the brain, or to add weight when you're making the case internally. Most people don't ask until they need it. Would it be useful?
- Deepa ChauhanPossibly, for the regional directors. Not yet. Let me see how the branch sessions go and then I'll tell you. I don't want to put a senior person in front of them before we have something to show.
- Daniel OkaforSensible. I'll leave it parked and you tell me when. It won't go anywhere.
- Deepa ChauhanOne more practical thing. Single sign-on. Some of the branch managers keep forgetting their login. Is that something I can fix myself, or does that need a ticket?
- Daniel OkaforEnterprise includes single sign-on, so in principle they shouldn't be juggling a separate login at all. I don't want to guess how yours is set up, though, so let me check what's configured and come back to you. If it turns out some people aren't going through it, that could be a quiet reason some branches don't come back.
- Deepa ChauhanOh. That would be a very dull reason for low usage, and a very fixable one.
- Daniel OkaforThose are the best kind. I'll look at it this week and let you know by the end of next week, with the usage cut.
- Deepa ChauhanBrilliant. Please do.
- Daniel OkaforBefore I forget, how is your own team? Last time you mentioned you were short of someone on the systems side.
- Deepa ChauhanYou remembered. We got someone, finally. She's started and she's very capable, so I've been handing her some of the admin around the brain. It's useful to have a second pair of hands who knows how it's set up, in case I'm off.
- Daniel OkaforThat's very good news. A second person who knows it well is exactly what I'd hoped for, for the sake of continuity. If she'd like a walk through the admin side, I'm very happy to do that with her.
- Deepa ChauhanI'll ask her. I think she'd welcome that. I'll introduce you by email.
- Daniel OkaforLovely, thank you.
- Daniel OkaforShall I recap what we've said, then? Just to close the loop. I'll correct me if I've got any of it wrong.
- Deepa ChauhanPlease. I've been scribbling but it's probably a mess.
- Daniel OkaforSo from me, by the end of next week: the usage cut by team and by branch group, with the thin spots flagged; a check on how single sign-on is set up and whether anyone is bypassing it; and a half-page on what each connector feeds. After that I'll draft the short value summary for you to shape.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd from me, a short list of branches for the first sessions, ideally a mix of keen and sceptical. The date of the next account-data review. An introduction to my new colleague. And I'll ask IT what they're planning with the shared drives.
- Daniel OkaforThat's it exactly. And then we'll do the first branch session together, twenty minutes, one question, accounts from their own patch.
- Deepa ChauhanYes. And I'll write to the regional directors afterwards, but only once I know it works. I won't tell them anything that doesn't exist yet.
- Daniel OkaforI think that's the right instinct. Is there anything I've missed, anything you'd like me to be thinking about before we speak again?
- Deepa ChauhanI don't think so. Oh, actually, one thing. When you send the usage cut, can you keep the language plain? I may forward it on, and I don't want to explain the jargon.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. Plain English, small tables, and I'll leave out anything that only makes sense to us.
- Deepa ChauhanPerfect. Then that's me done. Thank you, Daniel, this was useful. I came in wanting one thing and I'm leaving with a small plan.
- Daniel OkaforThat's the best way to leave a call, honestly. Thank you for being so direct about the value question as well, it helps me do my job properly. How is the team finding the heat, by the way? Hopefully the branches have fans.
- Deepa ChauhanFans, ice lollies and a lot of complaining. We'll live. Right, I should go and actually finish this sandwich.
- Daniel OkaforGo on, enjoy it. I'll be in touch by the end of next week. Speak soon, Deepa.
- Deepa ChauhanThanks, Daniel. Bye for now.
- Daniel OkaforBye bye.
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