What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Demo of the brain on Pentreath's own excursions, orders and contracts. Kerensa and Wes responded well; Dan needs a security one-pager. Finance director not present. Decision target 23 Nov 2023.
What happened: Tom Ashdown ran the demo on a sample Pentreath shared, with Tobias Renwick covering security and freshness. Wes Jago saw an excursion timeline, a contract notification clause and a saved dashboard.
Customer view: Kerensa Trelease said "Facts before feelings" and wants the review page before the client sees it. Wes said the dashboard gave him his morning back. Dan Hosken asked who can see data and is the security gate.
Commercial: Tom quoted about £55,100 in total with implementation included, for Growth. Kerensa said price and the finance director's questions sit with him, so the commercial case is not yet made to the buyer.
Watch: The temperature monitoring export sometimes fails to arrive and Kerensa fears silently stale data. Dan says helpdesk permissions are messy.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Who was there
BB-Demo
Them
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Tom Ashdown to send a written Growth proposal to Kerensa Trelease and the finance director.
- Tobias Renwick to send Dan Hosken a one-page note on the access model.
- Hold the demo dashboard until the next conversation, ahead of the 23 Nov 2023 decision target.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- The finance director will ask what it saves and has not seen a value case.
- The nightly monitoring export sometimes fails to land, risking silently stale data.
- Dan Hosken needs a security note, and helpdesk permissions are untidy.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Growth subscription with implementation, quoted at about £55,100 in total.
- Wes Jago may build more dashboards once he has the first.
Transcript
- Tom Ashdown NoneAfternoon, everyone. Give it a minute for people to wander in. Kerensa, how's your week been?
- Kerensa Trelease NoneProperly lively. Latest excursion was a reefer trailer that lost its compressor on the M5 on Monday. Tell the client first, so we did, and the replacement was there inside the hour. But I'd still like to have seen the whole story in one place.
- Tom Ashdown NoneWell, that's today's job. Let me do introductions. I've got Tobias with me, our CTO. Tobias, this is Kerensa, who you've heard about.
- Tobias Renwick NoneGood afternoon. Before we begin, may I ask what your security team will need to see? I'd like to make sure we cover it today rather than leave it as a loose end.
- Dan Hosken NoneThat'll be me, more or less. Dan, systems and data analyst. I look after the connections between our systems, so I'll be the one asking where the data lives and who can touch it.
- Tobias Renwick NoneThen to be precise, you're the person I most want to talk to. I'll come to it properly after Tom has shown you the product.
- Wes Jago NoneAnd Wes, I look after the pharmaceutical accounts. I'm here as the guinea pig, I think. Kerensa said you'd use our real tickets.
- Tom Ashdown NoneThat's the plan. You shared the sample last week, and I've loaded it into a demo environment so what you're about to see is your own excursions, orders and contracts. Let me share my screen. Can you see that?
- Kerensa Trelease NoneYes. It's a bit small.
- Tom Ashdown NoneHang on, I'll make it bigger. Better?
- Kerensa Trelease NoneBetter. Go on.
- Tom Ashdown NoneSo this is the chat. Wes, give me a pharmaceutical client you know well and I'll just ask it something.
- Wes Jago NoneTry the vaccine distributor. The one with the strict contract.
- Tom Ashdown NoneRight. I'll type, show me every temperature excursion for this client in the last quarter, how long each took to close, and anything the contract says we owe them. And it's thinking. Sometimes it takes a few seconds.
- Tom Ashdown NoneThere. So it's found the excursions, it's put them in a timeline, and underneath it's got the clause on notification windows. See the little links? Each of those goes to the ticket or the page in the contract.
- Wes Jago NoneThat's, yeah. That's what I'd spend my Thursday building. Is that clause right? Let me check. Mm. Yes, that's the notification one. Can it tell when we were late?
- Tom Ashdown NoneAsk it. Go on, you type.
- Wes Jago NoneWhich of those did we notify outside the contract window?
- Tom Ashdown NoneAnd there you go. Two flagged. It shows the time the probe alarmed, the time the ticket was opened, the window in the contract.
- Kerensa Trelease NoneFacts before feelings. That's exactly the page I'd want to open a review with. And I'd want to see it before the client does.
- Wes Jago NoneI'd want to see it before the client does too, frankly. Though I don't know how comfortable I am with it saying we were late. Who sees that?
- Tom Ashdown NoneThat's a good one for Tobias, access is controlled by what the person is allowed to see in the source system. But Tobias, you tell it.
- Tobias Renwick NoneThe honest answer is that it inherits permissions rather than inventing its own. If an account manager can't see a ticket in your helpdesk, they can't see it through the brain. The trade-off is that someone, probably Dan, has to keep those source permissions tidy, because the brain will faithfully reflect whatever is there.
- Dan Hosken NoneWhich is fair. Our helpdesk permissions are a bit of a mess if I'm honest. But better to find that out than not.
- Tom Ashdown NoneNo drama, everybody's are. Let me show the pages next, because this is what Kerensa asked for. Account review page for one client, built from the same material.
- Tom Ashdown NoneSo this is a client page. Orders over time, excursions, open tickets, the contract and when it renews. It's one place. You don't go and gather.
- Kerensa Trelease NoneHow current is it? Because if that's a day behind we're back to arguing about the numbers.
- Tobias Renwick NoneIt refreshes overnight, and the refresh completes by seven in the morning on business days. So an account manager opening it at nine has yesterday's close of business. It's not live to the minute, and I'd rather say so plainly.
- Kerensa Trelease NoneSeven's fine. Reviews don't start before nine. Wes?
- Wes Jago NoneSeven's fine. If a trailer's broken down at half past seven I'll be on the phone anyway, not reading a page.
- Tom Ashdown NoneGood. Dan, I want to get you something to chew on. How many systems would we be connecting, roughly?
- Dan Hosken NoneHelpdesk, CRM, the accounting system, the temperature monitoring export, and the shared folder with the contracts. Five. Maybe a sixth if we count the depot spreadsheets, but I'd rather we didn't.
- Tobias Renwick NoneFive is comfortably inside what Growth includes. The monitoring export is the one I'd look at first, because anything that arrives as a file on a schedule is where freshness problems tend to start. Dan, does that export land somewhere stable?
- Dan Hosken NoneIt drops into a folder at about the same time every night. Usually. Occasionally it doesn't and someone has to kick it.
- Tobias Renwick NoneThen we plan for that. We'd monitor the load and flag when it's missed, so the answer is not silently stale. That's something to design together in the first weeks.
- Kerensa Trelease NoneSilently stale is the worst thing. I'd rather it told me it was old.
- Tom Ashdown NoneIt will. Right, last thing from me, and then I'll shut up. Dashboards. Wes, you mentioned you build a monthly view of excursions by depot?
- Wes Jago NoneI do, by hand, in a spreadsheet, every month. It takes me a morning. I hate it.
- Tom Ashdown NoneThen watch this. I'll ask for excursions by depot by month, and ask it to make a dashboard of it. There. It's saved, it's yours, it updates itself every night.
- Wes Jago NoneWell. That's my morning back.
- Kerensa Trelease NoneDon't spend it all on one thing, Wes.
- Wes Jago NoneI'll build five more dashboards and then the finance director will ask what I've been doing.
- Kerensa Trelease NoneHe'll ask anyway. Who's using it, what does it save us. That's his line. I'll sort that side with him, it's not mine to haggle over.
- Tom Ashdown NoneOf course. I'll put the commercial detail in writing for him directly. For the deal, as we said before, it's about £55,100 in total with implementation included, but I'll confirm every line in the proposal rather than trust my memory.
- Dan Hosken NoneCan I ask something on security before we finish? Does anyone at your end get to see our data, Tobias? Day to day.
- Tobias Renwick NoneTo be precise, it runs inside your own Snowflake account, so the data stays within your controls. We don't hold a copy. For support we'd work through access that you grant and can withdraw. I'll write that up as a one-page note for you to take to whoever signs off.
- Dan Hosken NoneThat works. A one-pager I can forward is exactly what I need.
- Tom Ashdown NoneBrilliant. So what happens next. I'll send a written proposal for Growth to Kerensa, and I'll make sure your finance director gets the same, plus Tobias's note goes to Dan. We still have Thursday 23 November 2023 pencilled as the target for a decision.
- Kerensa Trelease NoneThat's fine. Give me the proposal and I'll get it in front of him this week. Thanks, both of you. That was useful, and Wes, thank you for being brave.
- Wes Jago NonePleasure. Can I keep the dashboard?
- Tom Ashdown NoneIt's in the demo space, I'll make sure it stays until we've spoken again. Cheers, everyone. Speak soon.
- Tobias Renwick NoneThank you all. Best wishes for the rest of the week.