Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Proposal
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 17 Aug 2026 09:45
Lewis Kerr put the £4,548 expansion to Malcolm Ridgway. The CFO wants usage by branch, ticket timings and a value note before signing, and prefers the close date moves rather than being pushed.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Lewis Kerr put the £4,548 expansion to Malcolm Ridgway. The CFO wants usage by branch, ticket timings and a value note before signing, and prefers the close date moves rather than being pushed.
What happened: Lewis Kerr set out a £4,548 plus VAT expansion, a total deal value including one-off implementation, co-termed to the renewal. It sits on the Enterprise subscription at £128k a year, which the order form and invoices agree.
Customer view: Malcolm Ridgway, the CFO, challenged daily users of forty-odd against two hundred licensed. Deepa Chauhan put it down to summer leave, first-wave branches that never started and people changing roles.
Commercial: Malcolm wants usage by branch and team, ticket timings against the 30 minute P1 commitment, and a value note he can take to the board. The contract ends 27 Feb 2027, and Deepa wants one piece of work for both expansion and renewal.
Watch: One of three tickets was a delayed overnight refresh, and whether it breached the 07:00 commitment is unchecked. The expected close of 14 Sep 2026 was left open.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Expansion versus falling usage
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
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 written summary and usage-cut plan to Deepa Chauhan and Malcolm Ridgway on 17 Aug 2026.
- Daniel Okafor to deliver usage by branch and team, ticket timings and a value note.
- Lewis Kerr to review the close date with Malcolm once all three are in.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daily active users are far below the two hundred licensed and down on the previous quarter, which weakens the board case for any spend.
- A delayed overnight refresh left credit control on stale balances, and the Enterprise freshness commitment has not yet been checked.
- The contract ends 27 Feb 2027 and the CFO has no value number yet.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A value note built with credit control could serve both the expansion and the renewal.
- Short sessions for branches that never started could lift adoption within the existing seats.
Transcript
Lewis KerrMorning both. Can you hear me alright?
Deepa ChauhanMorning Lewis, yes, loud and clear. Malcolm's just joining, I can see him in the lobby now.
Malcolm RidgwayMorning. Sorry, I was on another call that ran over. Is this the one with the document?- Lewis KerrIt is. No problem at all, we've only just started. Wet one up there, I gather? It's been raining down here since about six.
- Malcolm RidgwayBirmingham in August. What did you expect. Right. What has changed since we last spoke?
- Lewis KerrFair question, and a good place to start. Not a great deal on the commercial side. The expansion proposal is as we scoped it on the last call, and I've now got it in a form you can read properly. What I'd like to confirm today is what you want to buy and by when. I have the expected close down as Monday 14 September 2026, so about four weeks from now.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd the one thing I need from this call, just so we're clear, is to know where we stand on the branch side. But go on, Lewis, do the number first. Malcolm will want it.
- Malcolm RidgwayI will. And the cost of that is?
- Lewis KerrTo put a number on it, the expansion comes to £4,548 plus VAT. I want to be careful here, Malcolm, because that is the total value of the deal. It is not an annual price, it includes the one-off implementation element. It would be co-termed to your renewal, so you wouldn't have a second anniversary to manage.
- Malcolm RidgwayTotal, not annual. Fine. And what sits underneath it? What's the base?
- Lewis KerrUnderneath it is your existing Enterprise subscription. The contracted figure is £127,500 a year, and that is also what has been invoiced, so the order form and accounting agree. Nothing in the expansion changes that figure. It sits on top.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood. Then I'll say the awkward thing early. I looked at the usage summary Deepa forwarded. We have two hundred licensed users. The daily numbers are forty-odd. And that is down on the quarter before.
- Lewis KerrYes. I've seen the same, and I'll be straight with you, I was going to raise it myself. Down by about a quarter on the previous quarter, depending on how you cut it.
- Malcolm RidgwayA quarter of what, though? Of the forty? Of the two hundred? Never accept a percentage without the base.
- Lewis KerrOf the active users. So it is a quarter off an average that was already in the fifties. I don't want to quote the exact daily figures from memory, so I'll have them set out properly in writing.
- Malcolm RidgwayPlease do. Because I'm being asked to look at a bigger spend with fewer people using what we've got. What does that do to the board case?
- Deepa ChauhanCan I come in on that, Malcolm? Because I don't think it's as simple as people losing interest.
- Malcolm RidgwayGo on.
- Deepa ChauhanThree things, really. One, it's summer. Branch managers and half the key-account team have been on leave in rotation, and the numbers always dip in July and August. Two, a number of the branches we onboarded in the first wave never really got into the habit. They looked at the account view for a few weeks and went back to ringing head office. Three, and this is the one I'm less comfortable with, a couple of the people who were our most regular users have changed roles.
- Malcolm RidgwaySo some of that is seasonal and some of it isn't.
- Deepa ChauhanSome of it isn't. I'd rather say that now than have you find it in the review.
- Lewis KerrThat's useful, Deepa, thank you. And I'd say the same from our side. I don't want to sell you more on the back of a number that isn't telling the whole story.
- Malcolm RidgwayThen say what you think. Should we be signing this?
- Lewis KerrHonestly, I think the expansion is sensible on its own terms, it's a small piece of work and it's what Deepa's team asked for. But I'm not going to tell you to sign something just because the date is in my diary. If the usage can't support it, I'd rather we waited. Daniel Okafor, your customer success manager, can pull active users by branch and by team, so we can see exactly where the drop sits.
- Deepa ChauhanWhich account, which branch? That is the cut I'd want. Not just a total. If it's ten branches that never started, that's a training problem. If it's the key-account team, that's something else.
- Lewis KerrAgreed. Daniel can do it by branch, and I'll ask him to split out who is asking the questions as well, because one or two people asking most of them would be a different conversation.
- Malcolm RidgwayPut it in writing. What you're going to pull, and when I get it.
- Lewis KerrI'll send that over today, with Daniel copied. I'd suggest we aim for the end of this week for the first cut.
- Malcolm RidgwayMm. Now. Tickets. Deepa mentioned some in her note. Three, I think, and two of them marked high priority. For an Enterprise customer, that sounds like a lot in a month.
- Deepa ChauhanThree in the last month, two of them high priority, yes. I can say what they were about if that helps. Neither stopped us working, but one was a delay on the overnight refresh and it meant the credit control team were looking at yesterday's balances on a Monday morning.
- Malcolm RidgwayYesterday's balances. On trade accounts. With the insurer watching limits.
- Deepa ChauhanYes. I know. It's exactly why I've been careful about how I describe it to the regional directors.
- Lewis KerrI won't pretend that's trivial. On Enterprise the refresh is meant to be complete by seven in the morning on business days, and freshness is one of the things you are credited for if it's missed. I don't want to say whether that was a breach from memory. I'll ask Daniel to check the ticket timestamps against the commitment and tell you plainly.
- Malcolm RidgwayAnd the response times on the two high priority ones? Were they inside thirty minutes?
- Lewis KerrThat's the other thing I'll have him check. The Enterprise first response for a priority one is thirty minutes, so that is the test. I'd rather give you the timestamps than a feeling.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood. Because if you were late on both, I'd want to know before I put my name to anything bigger.
- Deepa ChauhanFor what it's worth, the support team were quick to pick them up, from what I saw. But I wasn't timing it, so I'd rather the facts came from Daniel.
- Lewis KerrFair. Right, so let me just recap where I think we are, and tell me if I've got it wrong. The proposal is for £4,548 plus VAT, total value, co-termed to your renewal, no change to the £127,500 a year. You'd like to see usage by branch and by team before you decide, and you'd like the ticket response times checked against the Enterprise commitments. Is that fair?
- Malcolm RidgwayThat's most of it. I'd add one thing. I want to know what the brain is actually worth to us. Not features. A number I can take to the board. Debtor days, accounts put on stop earlier, disputes closed faster. What do we have?
- Lewis KerrThat's a fair thing to ask, and I'd be wary of inventing a number on this call. What I can do is ask Daniel to put together a short value note based on how your credit control and key-account teams have used it, and Deepa can tell us which of those uses she'd stand behind.
- Deepa ChauhanI can do that. Show me where that number comes from, as I always say, so I'll go through it before it goes anywhere near Malcolm. I'd also like to get credit control in the room for the next account-data review. The people who use it every day are the best evidence we have.
- Malcolm RidgwayDo that. If credit control say it earns its keep, that counts for more than anything a supplier writes.
- Lewis KerrCompletely agree. Can I ask one more thing, Malcolm, on timing? Because there's the date I mentioned, the middle of next month. If the evidence isn't in good shape by then, are you comfortable with me moving the close date rather than pushing for it?
- Malcolm RidgwayI'd prefer that. Move it. I would rather sign in a month's time with the facts than sign in four weeks and spend the winter explaining it.
- Lewis KerrUnderstood. I'll keep it open at the moment and we'll look at it again once you've had the usage cut and the ticket check.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I raise the renewal while we're here? Only so it doesn't ambush us.
- Lewis KerrPlease do.
- Deepa ChauhanI know it's some way off, but we're into the contract end in February. Malcolm will want to see the value case well ahead of that, not in the last month.
- Malcolm RidgwayI will. What are the dates, exactly? I want them written down.
- Lewis KerrThe contract ends on 27 Feb 2027, and the renewal date on the order form is 28 Feb 2027. Daniel owns the renewal conversation and he will give you the notice well before then, but there's no reason it has to wait for that. If the value note is good, it does double duty.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood. Then it should be one piece of work, not two.
- Lewis KerrThat's how I'd like to run it. One set of numbers, used for both.
- Deepa ChauhanOne more practical thing. Some of the branch managers keep asking me whether they get more seats, because they think the two hundred is full. It isn't. It's less than a quarter used on a normal day. I'd like to be able to say that clearly and not promise them anything new before it exists.
- Lewis KerrThat's a message I'm happy to help with. You have two hundred licensed users and there is a lot of room in that. Nobody needs more seats at the moment, they need more people actually using the ones they have.
- Malcolm RidgwayWhich is the point. I'm not buying more of anything until the existing thing is earning its keep.
- Lewis KerrUnderstood, and I think that's the right position. I'll make sure the note I send reads that way, so it doesn't look as if we're pushing.
- Deepa ChauhanCould Daniel also offer something for the quieter branches? A short session, a walk through the account view. Nothing grand.
- Lewis KerrI'll ask him. I think a handful of short sessions aimed at the branches that never started would do more than one big training day, but that's his call, so I'll put it to him and come back to you.
- Malcolm RidgwayFine. Is there anything else I need to know before I go? I've got a credit insurer call at ten.
- Lewis KerrNothing else from me. To close, then. Today I send you the written summary with the proposal and the plan for the usage cut. Daniel comes back with usage by branch, the ticket timings and the value note. We look at the close date again once you have all three.
- Malcolm RidgwayGood. Thank you. Malcolm Ridgway, signing off, as they say.
- Deepa ChauhanThanks both. Lewis, send the usage list to me first and I'll shape it before Malcolm sees it. Speak soon.
- Lewis KerrWill do. Thanks, both. Have a good day.
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