In 2004 Montage (Pty) Limited created about 300 quotes and 100 work tickets per month with a turnover of about R15 million per annum. All Montage quotes were calculated manually and work tickets were hand written. This system presented a number of challenges:

• It took hours to calculate and deliver quotes to clients
• The quotes varied by estimator and were not consistently accurate
• It was difficult to track paper quotations
• Estimating capacity was limited to available man hours
• Record keeping was poor so it took a long time to retrieve quotes or work tickets for clients

Montage decided to implement a suitable IT solution :

We reviewed many estimating packages and M.I.S. systems. Almost all were complicated and we found it was probably easier and would probably take the same amount of time to create manual quotes. We also had little or no use for the non-essential features presented. The only real benefits we would glean was consistency, quotation tracking and record keeping, however, the entire Montage mindset would need to change for Montage to adapt to the different software solutions reviewed at the time”

A decision was taken to install e-nGauge which we found to be unlike the other quotation software applications available, for several reasons:

• With all other solutions that we evaluated it was far easier to produce an estimate by hand
• With e-nGauge the time taken to produce and send a formatted estimate to a client is phenomenal. With the same level of staffing, we have gone from a capacity of 300 estimates a month to an average of 1800 per month with a capacity of probably double that amount.
• As a company we did not have to go through the pains of enormous change and mind-set shift to adapt to the software. The software added to the way we did things and the way we did things did not have to change.
• Our capacity and performance increased dramatically, in our first year with e-nGauge we grew by 78% from a turnover of R15 million to R26 million. In the following year growth increased by 40% to a turnover of R36 million,

I attribute the enormous growth curve to the increased capacity to handle our clients requests,

Client quotes or job queries that traditionally took 3-4 hours to resolve, are now done in a matter of minutes.

Endorsement from Print Outsource International (POINT) Leaders in Managed Print Solutions – www.printoutsource.co.za

As you well know, the print environment that we work in is very fast moving and anywhere in the process where timelines can be reduced are relished.

The e-nGauge Estimating and M.I.S. system is one such development in the estimating process that contributes to helping us reduce the overall timelines. We have noticed that your estimates are calculated and submitted well before many of our other suppliers.

Thank you for your continued commitment to innovation and progress in technology, which in-turn, allows us to improve our service offering to our clients.