Lakeland Leisure Estates Lochs in Digital Benefits with Percipient
Sage Intacct underpins innovation and modernisation programme at the fast-growing marina and holiday park business.
About Lakeland Leisure Estates
A family business established over 30 years ago, Lakeland Leisure Estates started as a caravan park and currently operates parks in the UK and Spain and runs inland and coastal marinas throughout the country. Today it operates five inland marinas, one coastal marina and three holiday parks, along with a dedicated boat and lodge sales operation.
Lakeland Leisure Estates invests heavily in its sites, whether it’s jetty upgrades or new glamping pods, to ensure high standards and quality accommodation, and has grown both organically and through acquisition over the years. With 170 people and a turnover of £16 million in 2022, Lakeland prides itself on an optimum customer experience (CX) through a personalised approach and the delivery of a unique holiday proposition. This is reinforced by high levels of loyalty via repeat bookings.
A Modern Approach
As a family-run business in the hands of a second generation, Lakeland Leisure Estates prioritises innovation and new ways of working as a means to garner loyalty, secure competitive advantage and expand market share.
Having made the decision to embrace a digitalisation and modernisation programme to support its ethos and achieve its growth ambitions, Lakeland Leisure Estates invested in Sage Intacct, Sage’s best-in-class cloud financial management platform. Replacing its previous Sage 50 system, Sage Intacct was selected as part of a review in 2021 based on its ability to scale and support growth, capacity to deliver fast insights and intelligence, and easy integration with other third-party systems such as Lakeland Leisure Estate’s customer payment portal, Harbour Assist, and procurement and account payable (AP) platforms.
When looking for a partner to help us maximise the value of our investment in the system, we selected Percipient based on its credentials, experience and expertise in the hospitality industry. The team’s understanding of our industry, including the nuances, nuts and bolts of the sector, and best practice model, gave us immense confidence from the outset.
Democratising Data
“Sage Intacct’s ability to facilitate 360-degree visibility, and speed of insights, was impressive,” comments Dan Fisher, Finance Director, Lakeland Leisure Estates. “We quickly bought into its cloud-native infrastructure and the fact that it could democratise data to deliver one version of the truth. It is also incredibly flexible and supports remote working, which has become more prevalent in the wake of the pandemic.”
“When looking for a partner to help us maximise the value of our investment in the system, we selected Percipient based on its credentials, experience and expertise in the hospitality industry. The team’s understanding of our industry, including the nuances, nuts and bolts of the sector, and best practice model, gave us immense confidence from the outset. Their experience working with other hospitality organisations was hugely valuable in generating ideas and solutions. They left no stone unturned in helping us to navigate the processes and opportunities presented by the system.”
Having integrated Sage Intacct with other critical systems via Percipient’s Cloud Connect, an API-based solution, Lakeland Leisure Estates is now benefitting from improved time savings, speedy information flow, and intelligence from which to run the business.
Sage Intacct, supported by Percipient, represents somewhat of a dream team, giving us as an organisation both the capabilities and the confidence to extract insights, generate meaningful, personalised reports, and run our business in the modern, innovative way we strive for.
Data Granularity
“Some of the headline benefits are around our project profit and loss accounts (P&Ls). Given the nature of our business structure, we need visibility of income streams by project and department, whether it’s cafes, housekeeping or sales, in order to make interventions as anomalies or trends dictate,” Dan continues.
“Through using Sage Intacct we can record high levels of data granularity about each of our boats, or lodges, which helps us to improve both service levels and profitability at the same time. This ‘drillability’ is a godsend in pinpointing details which can make a difference, particularly as we seek to pursue growth and expand our proposition in the future.
Insight & Experience
“The Percipient team were genuinely so easy to build a relationship with, bringing insight, and experience around the nuances of hospitality, ideas, friendship and laughter to the table throughout the project. We’re already looking forward to a health check session later this year, where we review the way in which the system is working and they make recommendations as opportunities present themselves,” Dan adds.
“Sage Intacct, supported by Percipient, represents somewhat of a dream team, giving us as an organisation both the capabilities and the confidence to extract insights, generate meaningful, personalised reports, and run our business in the modern, innovative way we strive for.”
Sage Intacct Partner for Hospitality
If you’d like to learn more about Sage Intacct, our work with Lakeland Leisure Estates, or to discuss how we can help your hospitality business, get in touch or call us on 01606 871332.