Motor factor recovers from devastating fire with help of cloud solution

AGM Complete Parts & Components Ltd praises MAM Software's assistance with getting business back on track

Based in Lincolnshire, AGM has praised the support it has received from MAM and its cloud-hosted business management solution, Autopart Online, for assisting the business in swiftly recovering from a fire that ripped through its head office in Spalding.

AGM's head office caught fire on 5th May 2017, resulting in the loss of the premises and £225,000 worth of stock. The company had to relocate its staff and business operations to its second branch in Sleaford.

"The fire caused major damage to our head office. It happened in the early hours of the morning so thankfully nobody was hurt, but we lost the whole premises and the entirety of the stock we had there," as Adrian Moore, Managing Director at AGM explains.

A few weeks before the fire AGM switched to Autopart Online, the cloud-hosted version of MAM's business management solution, Autopart. Being on the hosted system, AGM's important business data was safely stored in a remote data centre and was still accessible to its staff after the fire.

"We called MAM to tell them what had happened and the assistance they gave us was great," Adrian continued. "As we were on a cloud-hosted system it meant that we could carry on trading on the same day from our Sleaford branch. The biggest obstacle was the lack of stock, but thankfully we didn't lose any of our data."

"The advantage of using a cloud-hosted system is having both branches effectively sharing the same server, so you've got full access to sales history and customer accounts and we could just carry on."

"If we had an on-site server when the fire happened, I can't begin to imagine the cost of replacing the system. The setup time for a new server would have been weeks rather than hours."

The company hopes to move back into its Spalding branch next summer once refurbishment work on the building has been completed. In the meantime, AGM has moved its head office into temporary premises.

When speaking about Autopart Online's flexibility, Adrian said: "The whole process of setting up our temporary branch was made a lot easier because of Autopart Online. Certainly, the cost of re-opening our Spalding branch will be reduced because there is no need for the on-site server."

"We're extremely glad that we could help AGM overcome these difficult circumstances," said Mark Kendall, Head of Sales at MAM Software.

"Losing an on-site server in a fire, or any other unforeseen event, can have devastating consequences for a business. Because AGM are using Autopart Online, their vital product, supplier and customer data were thankfully unaffected."