Improved Productivity and Growth at China Fleet

A well-established golf and country club has been able to grow and move its business forward thanks to support from Superfast Business Cornwall on two major IT projects.

The China Fleet Country Club, near Saltash, wanted to become more productive and grow its business by implementing a sophisticated time and attendance system and greatly enhanced WiFi for customers including a customer portal.

“The projects were both quite expensive undertakings and it would have been quite a few years until we were able to afford them both,” said General Manager Dean Bennett. “These projects were key to growing our business quickly but having recently invested significantly in upgrading our facilities we weren’t able to release that level of investment.

“We discussed our funding options and opportunities with Superfast Business Cornwall and have managed to implement both with their funding support and expertise.”

Going WiFi

The enhanced WiFi system includes a captive portal for customers to log in and is already up and running. It is particularly useful for corporate events and allows the club to automatically notify customers of offers, events and other marketing activity.

“WiFi is such a utility these days, it’s not a nice to have, but a need to have, and we were suffering from reliability issues previously,” added Dean. “Now with help from Superfast Business Cornwall we have a very sophisticated system where we can even target specific markets within the hotel.

“It also means we can retain customers who stay with us for business purposes, as we can provide a reliable system for them to work with, and that is really important with the conference market.

“We have seen evidence of growth and increased turnover already as we have introduced a new full-time member of staff into our sales team.”

Although the time and attendance system has not been rolled out fully yet, initial feedback from staff is very positive. Staff will sign in and out with a thumbprint which will help with efficiency, meaning that any overtime is recorded exactly and the process is less labour intensive.

“We have more than 200 members of staff, meaning we have a lot of information to get on to the system and configured ahead of going live,” said Dean. “Time and attendance recording was previously very labour intensive and mistakes were often made.

“We were bogged down with a huge admin burden and removing that will allow us to move the business forward and grow. The system is also paperless, which has a positive environmental impact as well.”

Hands on Fantastic Service

China Fleet Country club is being supported by Superfast Business Cornwall Digital Business Enabler Steve Edwards and Digital Business Adviser Jon Gerrard throughout the process.

“The systems that we are introducing are so powerful, I don’t think we would have been able to manage it without Superfast Business Cornwall,” said Dean. “They really held our hands through the whole process and helped us to complete the application process and the tender.

“Superfast Business Cornwall have been with us every step of the way. We have received a fantastic service from them.”

Digital Business Enabler Steve Edwards said, “It has been great to work with Dean and the China Fleet team.  They have been open to new ideas and have engaged within their team, which is a great catalyst for change.  I have used the Wi-Fi and Captive portal service already and the growth benefits have already started to be seen.  I am sure that the Time and Attendance system will equally deliver the desired outcomes giving China Fleet a solid platform to continue and support their future growth plans”.

Superfast Business Cornwall aimed to help businesses understand, adopt and exploit digital technology to boost competitiveness.  The service offered a tailored programme of high quality information, impartial advice and digital development.

The service was funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and delivered by Serco Employment, Skills and Enterprise, national market leaders in the provision of Superfast Broadband focused business support. Building upon the success of the previous Superfast Business Cornwall Service, the latest project ran until March 2019.