BSSA’s mission is to provide unrivalled support and commercial advantage for non-food retailers in the UK small business sector.

Background

British Shops and Stores Association (BSSA) as it is now was established in 1991 through the amalgamation of the Drapers Chamber of Trade, Menswear Association of Britain and National Association of Retail Furnishers. Today the Association has around 4,000 members comprising mainly small to medium sized, non-food independent retail businesses located throughout the UK.

BSSA has two primary objectives :

1. To provide a comprehensive and highly competitive range of core business and professional services to its members. Some of these services are provided directly by the Association (Insurance, Clearing House, Training) whilst others, notably business banking, electronic card processing , advice lines, compliance and legal services, are sourced externally.
2. To represent the interests of its members to government at both national and European level , directly to UK government departments and indirectly through its close involvement with the British Retail Consortium.

Prior to 1991 BSSA's membership management processing was carried out using a bespoke computer system purchased several years earlier. However it was quickly recognised that the software provided limited functionality and this, combined with problematic support issues, led BSSA to research the market to find a comprehensive replacement membership relationship management (MRM) system.

The Project

BSSA's Commercial Director, John Astill, and Membership Administrator, Cheryl Lawrence, decided to short list potential suppliers that provided specialised software for the not-for-profit sector which was sensibly priced and in keeping with BSSA’s size and type of organisation. Target from Centrepoint Computer Services was considered an ideal candidate to address these prerequisites and BSSA was further encouraged when, after discussing their requirements and demonstrating the software, CCS confirmed that the system could be tailored to provide exactly what BSSA wanted.

BSSA then spent some time working out exactly what was needed and produced detailed written specifications of their requirements. Key requirements were to ensure that membership data was presented clearly and in a readily understandable form, and that the system could be available for use by all departments throughout the company. A further important aspect was to implement a system to control the financial side of the membership process that was previously lacking, including full automation of the processing of both new memberships and annual renewals (all memberships renew on the 1st January each year).

The Superbase version of Target Central Database and Membership Management system was installed on to BSSA’s in-house network in 1994, and the system was upgraded to the Visual Basic (VB) version in 2002. Since inception there have been amendments and enhancements on an ongoing basis in order to deal with changes in BSSA’s organisation and in its members’ needs, to take advantage of advances in technology, and to improve operational efficiency. All staff with a PC (ie most employees) have access to the system and can obtain up-to-date information and reports to meet their particular needs. The system’s configuration and operating procedures have been comprehensively documented by Cheryl to assist both new and existing users and to ensure that the company is not reliant on any individual’s knowledge.

The Result - BSSA Today

The Target system has many important features and functionalities which assist BSSA in achieving membership and business objectives, examples being:

• Logging of individual communications history and service utilisation
• Appropriate analysis of data for marketing initiatives
• Provision of data in advance of member visits, or for regional events and meetings
• Enhancement of member communications, and cost savings, through extensive use of group e-mail
• Powerful search functions, enabling individual records or specific groupings to be located quickly
• Automated annual renewal process, including :-
  • Direct debit – notices and cash collections via integration with BACS software
  • Renewal/reminder notices
  • Confirmation of payment & automatic printing of membership cards
  • Bar code scanning to improve processing efficiency
  • Follow up of non-renewals to assist with member retention
  • Integration with AFD postcode software to speed up data entry and reduce scope for addressing errors

BSSA is now beginning to consider upgrading to the latest version of the system - eTarget. “Whilst I believe that it is rarely necessary to be at the forefront in using new technology and systems” says John, “there is clearly a point at which it makes business sense to move on to new systems with greater capabilities”. While Target does all they need at the moment, BSSA recognise that eTarget, now being used by many not-for-profit organisations, will provide enhanced functionality and business benefits and also offer the clearer, more concise and user friendly user experience that modern, internet-based software technology provides. BSSA intends to implement eTarget to coincide with the planned upgrade of their network and hardware platforms in due course.