BlueBox Case Studies

Langtree Group plc

“Excellent new features”

Industrial estate developer, the Langtree Group plc owns some 4 million square feet of space in business parks and office blocks across the North of England. From its offices in the North West, the Midlands and Yorkshire, Langtree successfully manages a portfolio with around 1,500 tenants using the flexible, fully integrated and Windows-based BlueBox system.

Phil Duckett, Langtree’s Finance Director, says the decision to buy from Trace was an easy one: “We looked at a lot of other systems when choosing BlueBox and have a product that we are perfectly happy with.” Langtree is very careful to keep on top of all aspects of its business, from development projects and hands-on property and lease management to sensible financial control – all of which is well supported by the BlueBox software. Phil feels that the option to implement BlueBox “was a very practical decision for us.”

Good after sales support is one of the most important areas to consider when getting a new system and when Langtree experienced one small problem, Trace’s engineers were quickly on the case - scrutinising both the software and the hardware. “They listened carefully to us and they sorted it out very quickly,” says Phil. “Trace has the best reputation in the marketplace for supporting its clients”

And does the flexible BlueBox system now provide Langtree with the speed and features it needs? “I was always confident that the product could deliver what we wanted.” Says Phil. “BlueBox gives us the platform from which we can successfully grow our business. It supports our business processes very well and because it is always being developed and upgraded, we should never have to change systems again.”

St John’s College Cambridge

“Efficiency and flexibility”

St John’s College owns approximately 18,000 acres of agricultural land around England as well as a large and diverse property portfolio encompassing shops, offices, leisure facilities, industrial units, residential properties and ground rents.

Prior to purchasing BlueBox, the St John’s team used a Dolphin system. The primary concern they had with their old system was that it was not Y2K compliant. However it also had a couple of other problems: it was not capable of holding the full range the property data that they required for their portfolio and so a paper filing system had to be run in parallel. This meant that updating and searching for information was very time consuming and involved duplication of effort. Even when the information had been found, the system’s basic reporting functionality meant that outputs from the system were limited.

The team looked at other systems including ECS (Qube) and Manhattan. They compared a number of factors including functionality, flexibility and ease of use. In the end they decided that BlueBox was the best fit for their needs as it covered the full range of their requirements and provided flexibility for growth in the future - without being unnecessarily complex.

St John’s College is an owner-occupier as well as a landlord for different parts of its portfolio. The team use BlueBox for all their properties and for the wide range of tasks associated with them. Financial processes include preparation of budgets, rent billing and forecasting the rental income they expect to get in the forthcoming year. They also record repairs and improvements, track rent reviews, store contact details, property descriptions and ERV's and use the Custom Data feature of the system to record very specific aspects of the portfolio such as a house purchase scheme. They make use of the extensive reporting facilities and find the smooth links to Excel a particular bonus.

“Overall the staff at the college find the system provides a huge time saving benefit” said Carol Ingram, Bursar’s Agent for St John’s College. “It also offers us better flexibility and the option of expanding our use of the system in the future.”