SJIC transformed their expense management system, moving from a spreadsheet-based process to a simplified system with Kinabase, saving time and effort across their business operations.
St John’s Innovation Centre (SJIC) provides early-stage, knowledge-based companies with tailored business services and flexible accommodation.
It was the first innovation centre of its kind in Europe and has become widely known for its success in supporting high-growth businesses with strategic advice, training, introductions, resources, and a presence in the community.
It is located at the heart of the Cambridge technology cluster, in which it plays a pivotal role.
Prior to finding Kinabase, St John’s Innovation Centre had “a specific challenge in the business process of managing expense claims.”
They were looking for a way to seamlessly digitise their expense management processes. Relying on dozens of spreadsheets was hindering efficiency and integration with the rest of their business.
SJIC is using Kinabase as an expense management platform currently and considering integrating other aspects of their business into Kinabase later. They reported that although expense management was a part of their overall operations, “implementing this as the starting point made it risk-free.”
SJIC reported that Kinabase stood out among other products due to the “ease of implementation by ourselves and the flexibility” of the product to adapt to their specific business needs.
Kinabase was also the ideal size of company to work with as they were very responsive about including or implementing certain features that were helpful for processes unique to SJIC. Specifically, they stated that they “had great support from [the Kinabase] team, so even when a feature was not available at the time, we tended to be able to get a quick fix… the roadmap was there to implement what we needed down line.”
Additionally, since Kinabase is one of SJIC’s tenants, they said they were “keen to be early adopters in order to explore further [Kinabase product] Collections as we and Kinabase developed.”
“At the moment, it has drastically improved our expense processes and reduced the admin time that was previously allocated to this task. It has also opened our eyes to the possibilities to implement other processes using this valuable tool.”
Administration time is an area we at Kinabase are passionate about reducing so businesses can focus on the core aspects of their value proposition. To that end, SJIC said, “Kinabase has increased the productivity of our Business Growth team, allowing more time to focus on delivering client support.”
Something SJIC did to help ensure a smooth transition to Kinabase was to appoint an “internal ‘champion’ to interface with the Kinabase team and our own users, which really helped from both sides to ensure that adoption went smoothly.” What a helpful tip for other Kinabase users!
“Give it a try! Take a particular process ‘pain point’, as we did, and have a go yourself to customise it. And don’t forget to pilot what you have come up with before rolling it out fully across your organisation.”
Speaking of Kinabase, SJIC said they were most impressed with “the speed of innovation of the Kinabase product and the customer service that has been provided in support of our adoption.”
Please check out St John's Innovation Centre and the work they do over on the St John's Innovation Centre website.
For more information about Kinabase, don't hesitate to give us a call on 01223 626262.
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