The Idea
Pinewood DMS SA (Pty) Ltd officially started on the 1st December 2009 by founder and CEO, Julie Caldicott.
The idea to implement Pinewood DMS in South Africa all began in 2005 when the Reeds Motor Group decided they needed to utilise their database better and facilitate customer engagements through the implementation of a local Call Centre. Some of the Reeds Motor Group directors flew to the UK to visit multiple dealer call centre’s to see how they were doing things. One of the dealer visits was to the Pendragon Group and their call centre. The CEO of Pendragon at the time, Trevor Finn, asked the directors what system they were using at the time to distinguish how easy it would be to implement various processes. At that stage, they were using Kerridge Rev 7 and managing all customers outside of the system. Neville Briggs, MD of Pinewood Technologies drove up to demo Pinewood DMS to the Reeds Motor Group and spoke about the vision that the Reeds Motor Group had always dreamt of – a customer-centric DMS.
Taking Action
Over the next 18-months, research and extra development was done to accommodate and localise the product for South Africa and Pinewood DMS was officially implemented in the Reeds Motor Group in March 2007. As part of the deal, Reeds also obtained the reseller rights for South Africa. They saw a huge gap in the market to deliver a fully integrated DMS and provide exceptional customer service.
Toward the end of 2008 after the dust had settled, they started the search for someone prepared to start the Pinewood DMS business in SA, as part of this process, Julie Caldicott was approached. After the initial business plan was put together, she accepted and took on the challenge.
Going Live
Pinewood DMS SA (Pty) Ltd took our first partner LIVE in December 2009 which was William Simpson (single site and franchise) and took our second customer LIVE in March 2010 which was Produkta Motor Group (multi-site and multi-franchise).
Continued Growth
Today, we find ourselves implementing and supporting Pinewood DMS across South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Asia-Pacific with the continued vision of transforming service delivery within the automotive industry.
