Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Check In
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Merriott Lyle Distribution · 8 Jul 2025 15:00
Deepa Chauhan says usage has roughly tripled on the previous quarter and credit control now work from one account page. Regional directors are asking what the brain is worth, so Daniel Okafor owes her usage by team with questions asked.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Deepa Chauhan says usage has roughly tripled on the previous quarter and credit control now work from one account page. Regional directors are asking what the brain is worth, so Daniel Okafor owes her usage by team with questions asked.
What happened: On the 8 Jul 2025 check-in Deepa, Head of Commercial Systems, reported branch staff and credit control joining the key-account managers. Daniel showed usage roughly tripled on the previous quarter, from a small base, with 200 licensed users on Enterprise.
Customer view: Credit control now see orders, disputes and calls on one page before chasing an invoice. Two tickets in thirty days were handled, and Deepa called that quiet. Branch managers want to see the source of an answer and how fresh the data is.
Commercial: Directors want to know what the brain is worth. Daniel said questions asked, not logins, are the best evidence, and Deepa wants real examples from credit control. The order form and invoices agree at £116k a year with nothing overdue.
Watch: Deepa wants a sources walkthrough, and she asked for a delivery-side source that may test the connector allowance. Her review date is unconfirmed, so nothing is in the diary.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Adoption and value case
Importance
praise
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel to send the freshness wording and a ten-minute sources walkthrough idea by the end of that week.
- Daniel to pull usage by team with questions asked, plus credit control quotes once Deepa has asked them.
- Deepa to send the list of sources managers want and confirm whether Daniel can attend next month's review.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Regional directors are asking what the brain is worth and no value case exists yet.
- Branch managers distrust answers when they cannot see the source, and freshness worries were raised.
- Active users are still well under the 200 licensed, so the case rests on rising questions.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Credit control and regional directors reviewing one account page is a use case Enterprise was designed for.
- Branch managers want a delivery-side source, which can be assessed within the connector allowance.
- Headroom against 200 licensed users leaves room to bring in more branch staff.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Deepa, good afternoon. Can you hear me all right?
Deepa ChauhanAfternoon, Daniel. Yes, loud and clear. Sorry, I'm just getting the other screen out of the way, one second.- Daniel OkaforNo rush at all. Thank you for making the time, I know the diary at head office is never kind. It's just the two of us today, is that right? I wasn't sure whether anyone from credit control was joining.
- Deepa ChauhanJust me. I did ask, but they're tied up with month-end chasing. I'll bring them in properly next time, that's partly what I wanted to talk about.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. How's the week been otherwise? You were heading up to one of the northern branches, weren't you?
- Deepa ChauhanI was, yes. Two days of branch managers telling me what they do and don't trust on the screen. Long drive, mind, the roadworks were awful. But useful. Very useful, actually, which is where I'd like to start.
- Daniel OkaforGo on, please. Just so you know, my plan was to look at how the team is finding it, go through usage and the tickets, and then just to close the loop on anything outstanding from the rollout. But the one thing you need comes first.
- Deepa ChauhanRight. The one thing is this. I want the branch managers acting on the account view, not on whatever somebody said in the yard that morning. Some of them are. Some of them still ring the key-account manager first and ask what's going on with a customer. So I need to understand whether the numbers say we're getting there.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a fair thing to measure, and I think the numbers are on your side. Can I share my screen and show you what I've pulled together?
- Deepa ChauhanPlease. Show me where that number comes from, as ever.
- Daniel OkaforHa, I had a feeling. Right, can you see it? It's the usage page for your organisation. This line here is people who've been active over the last thirty days, averaged out. And compared with the previous quarter, you've roughly tripled. Actually a touch more than that.
- Deepa ChauhanTripled. Mm. That's from a fairly small base though, isn't it? Because in the spring it was really only my team and a handful of the key-account people.
- Daniel OkaforIt is from a small base, you're right, and I don't want to oversell it. You've got 200 licensed users on Enterprise, and the active number is still a good way under that. So there's a lot of headroom. But the direction is the thing I'd point at, and what's changed is who's in there.
- Deepa ChauhanWhich account, which branch? Sorry, that's my reflex. Can you split it by branch or at least by team?
- Daniel OkaforBy team, yes, and roughly by region. Give me a second. So the new activity is mostly branch staff and credit control, and the key-account managers who were there from the start are steady. They haven't dropped off, they've just been joined by everyone else.
- Deepa ChauhanThat fits what I heard on the road. Credit control are the ones who surprised me. Two of them told me they now look at the orders and the disputes and the calls on one page before they ring a customer about an invoice. Before, they'd have had four windows open.
- Daniel OkaforThat's exactly the use we hoped for when we scoped it with you. Can I ask, did they say anything they didn't like? I'd rather hear it from you now than find it later.
- Deepa ChauhanA couple of things. Not complaints exactly. One manager said he asked it a question about a trade account and the answer was right, but he didn't know which source it came from, so he didn't trust it enough to act on it. And somebody else wanted to know how fresh the data was, because they'd had a fright from an old report in the past.
- Daniel OkaforBoth good questions. On the first, every answer should carry its sources underneath, so it may be that he didn't scroll or didn't know to look. I can do a short walkthrough for your branch managers on reading the sources. Would that be useful?
- Deepa ChauhanIt would. Ten minutes, nothing heavy. They're not going to sit through an hour. And the freshness?
- Daniel OkaforThe brain refreshes overnight and it should be complete before seven each business morning, your local time. As far as I can see from here, that's been holding. I'll write the exact wording out for you so you can pass it on and nobody's relying on my memory of it.
- Deepa ChauhanYes please. If I can say it in one sentence in the branch newsletter, that does half the work.
- Daniel OkaforI'll draft that sentence for you. Right, tickets. There were just two in the last thirty days, and both were flagged high priority, which is why I wanted to ask whether they felt handled from your side. I'd rather check that with you than assume.
- Deepa ChauhanBoth were mine, I think. Yes. They were dealt with, I had no complaint there. Honestly two tickets with that many more people in it, I'd call that quiet.
- Daniel OkaforI'd read it the same way, but I always hold that loosely. Quiet can mean healthy, and it can mean people have stopped bothering to tell us things. Which is partly why I keep asking.
- Deepa ChauhanUnderstood. And, well, if it helps, they are bothering to tell me things. Believe me.
- Daniel OkaforThat's the best signal I could ask for, to be honest. Then that's fine, I'll leave the tickets there.
- Deepa ChauhanCan I come back to credit control, though? Because that's the bit I most want to land. I chair the monthly account-data review, and at the moment credit control sit in one half of it and the regional directors sit in the other, and they don't really talk to each other.
- Daniel OkaforMm. And you'd like the brain to be the thing they both look at in the same meeting.
- Deepa ChauhanExactly that. Let's get credit control in the room, with the regional directors, looking at the same account on the same page. Disputes, orders, the last calls, the invoices. If a director says a customer is fine and credit control say they're sixty days late, I want them to see why in the same breath. Not argue about whose spreadsheet is right.
- Daniel OkaforThat makes a lot of sense, and it's a use case that Enterprise was designed for, with branch, key-account and credit-control teams on the one view. Would it help if I came to one of those reviews? Not to present, just to be there and answer questions about what the brain can and can't see.
- Deepa ChauhanI'd like that. Next month's, perhaps. I'll need to check the date with the directors, so don't put it in the diary yet.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood, I won't put anything down until you confirm. I'll come back to you by the end of this week with the walkthrough idea and the freshness wording, so you've got something concrete to take into the invitation.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. Right, let me ask the awkward one. Some of the regional directors have asked me what this is worth. Not in a hostile way. They just want to know what changed because we've got it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a good question to be asked, and I'd rather you had an answer than a hunch. Honestly, the strongest evidence at the moment is the usage, and in particular the questions people are asking, because that's what tells us they're getting something out of it. People don't ask questions of something that doesn't help.
- Deepa ChauhanSo I need the questions, not just the logins.
- Daniel OkaforYes. Logins tell you someone turned up. Questions tell you what they were trying to find out. I can give you a view by team, and broadly the sort of subject matter, so the directors see disputes and credit questions and account history rather than a chart going up.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, I'd want that. I don't want them thinking it's a toy. What would be even better is a few real examples, a branch manager who changed what he did because of an answer.
- Daniel OkaforI can't promise stories out of the data, because that's something you'd have to collect from the people themselves. But the two credit control colleagues you met sound like exactly the kind of example. Would they be happy to say a couple of sentences?
- Deepa ChauhanI think so. I'll ask them. They were quite keen when I was up there, actually.
- Daniel OkaforLovely. Then I'll pair that with the usage and put it in one page. And while I think of it, just to close the loop on commercials, so you're not wondering. The order form and our invoices agree at £116,500 a year, and there's nothing overdue or outstanding at our end.
- Deepa ChauhanGood, I'd assumed so. Anything on money goes through the people who sign, so I'll leave that there. I just like knowing there's no surprise waiting.
- Daniel OkaforNone. And Lewis is still your contact for anything on the contract side, as before. I'm the one for adoption and how the team is finding it.
- Deepa ChauhanYes, understood. Lewis for contracts, you for the day to day.
- Daniel OkaforExactly. Now, one thing I wanted to raise myself, and it's a bit forward looking. With that much more activity, I'd like to look at which of your connected systems are actually being drawn on, so we know whether there are sources people want that aren't connected yet.
- Deepa ChauhanThere's one that came up on the road. The managers kept asking whether the delivery side could be in there. I told them I'd not promise anything, because I won't tell the regions they're getting something before it exists.
- Daniel OkaforThat's exactly the right answer to give them. I'd suggest we keep a short list of what they ask for, and when we meet we look at it together and see what's possible within your connector allowance. I won't guess at what's doable before I've looked.
- Deepa ChauhanFine. I'll gather the list from the managers I saw and send it over. Probably a handful of items, if I'm honest, and some of them will be the same thing said four ways.
- Daniel OkaforThat's usual. I'll tidy it with you. Anything else on your side you wanted to raise while we've got the time? We've got a bit of space.
- Deepa ChauhanOnly that I was expecting this to be harder. The first months were, you know, lots of me explaining what a trade account even looks like in the brain. Now people are asking me for things rather than being told. It's a different conversation.
- Daniel OkaforThat's lovely to hear, and it's worth saying you did a lot of that groundwork yourself, with the monthly review and getting the regions to turn up. It doesn't happen on its own.
- Deepa ChauhanThank you. Right. Then I think we're nearly there. Let me read back what I've got, so I don't forget it on the drive.
- Daniel OkaforPlease do.
- Deepa ChauhanOne, you send the freshness wording and a ten-minute walkthrough idea for branch managers on reading sources. Two, you put together the usage by team with the questions, plus the credit control quotes once I've asked them. Three, I send you the list of sources they'd like connected. And four, I find out whether you can come to next month's account-data review.
- Daniel OkaforThat's all of it, and in that order. I'll come back to you by the end of the week on the first two, at least in draft. And I'll wait for your word on the review before I touch the diary.
- Deepa ChauhanPerfect. Thanks, Daniel. Safe travels if you're out and about.
- Daniel OkaforThank you, Deepa. Mind the roadworks. Best wishes, speak soon.
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