The Hornbill solution, which will replace two existing systems, was chosen after a vigorous tender and evaluation process. Supportworks was selected from a short list of four suppliers, for its flexibility and breadth of functionality, the capability to be configured to meet the requirements of three separate areas of Halfords business, its modern look and feel and ease of use, and for its customer-focused approach.

The new solution will enable the Business Services division of Halfords to tender for additional Insurance Claims Replacement contracts. Paul Bullett, Head of Business Services at Halfords explained, "Supportworks has a much broader category management system than our previous system. This flexibility will enable Halfords to bid for valuable Insurance Replacement contracts in other insurance replacement sectors."

Nik Thompson, Halfords' IT Helpdesk Manager and departmental lead for the project commented, "We wanted a central solution that would provide not only IT support but could be configured to provide customer service support too. Hornbill seemed to be one of the few companies that offered this flexibility. By implementing one system that meets the needs of three different departments we anticipate major savings, not only on the initial purchase of three different systems we would otherwise have made, but also on future maintenance costs which include the economies of scale associated with supporting one system rather than three. This is in additional to any business related ROI we hope to achieve."

Gerry Sweeney, Managing Director at Hornbill commented, "Because Supportworks is a true business process automation platform, forward thinking retail organisations like Halfords are able to deploy a single, consolidated technology platform to provide customer support and enquiry management automation throughout their organisation. This gives them the potential to gain significant and fast ROI and reduced cost of ownership. This is simply not feasible with conventional IT helpdesk offerings."

Hornbill's Retail Sector Manager added, "In the Retail industry profit margins are traditionally tight so it is paramount for companies to have all processes within the business running as efficiently as possible. By providing a broad range of functionality within Supportworks which is fully configurable to meet virtually any requirement, we believe that we can make a very tangible difference to any retailer’s bottom line. Hornbill has taken on several new retail customers in recent months, and we continue to be committed to this sector."