Success Stories

Activant System Audit and Application Consulting Help Distributor Identify Areas for Improvement and Implement New Technology

As the operations manager of Outdoor Equipment Distributors (OED), Todd Holland wants to maximize the power in his company's Activant solution. "We need to take advantage of everything it offers," he says. "Time is money. Using our solution to get more things done with fewer people puts more money into our company's pockets."

While Holland spends time researching functionality available in each new release of his Activant solution, he also admits that it is impossible to understand how each of the dozens of new features can improve his business. "There's just so much available," he says.

To stay on top of everything built into OED's Activant solution, Holland schedules regular System Audits and Application Consulting engagements. "We want to harness the horsepower that's available in our solution," Holland says. "After all, what's the point of upgrading if you don't use the new technology?"

Identifying Underutilization

After a recent upgrade to a new release of an Activant solution, one of OED's purchasing agents left the company. Shortly after her departure, OED invested in a System Audit.

It was during the audit that Holland and other executives realized how vastly the agent had underutilized the solution's purchasing module. "We've been on our solution for years now, and there are many more features available for purchasing now than there were when we started," he says. "Plus, that agent wasn't really comfortable ordering on the computer. She thought she could do a better job herself."

Holland saw the opportunity to streamline: If he could automate the tasks that purchasing agent handled manually, he could save hours per week - and save thousands of dollars by eliminating the need to hire a replacement. So, he invested in time with an Activant Application Consultant.

The investment paid off immediately. "We might have spent five days reading help files and fumbling around the solution and not learned as much as we did in a few hours with the Application Consultant," he says.

Putting a Plan into Action

The consultant taught Holland and other OED employees to use the solution's inventory management functionality to run the purchase order (PO) requirements report automatically. "We just hash over those numbers, and our solution cuts the POs for us. Something that used to take 40 or 50 hours a week now takes almost no time at all."

The consultant also helped OED apply technology that was not available when it went live on its Activant solution. As a result, the company implemented many new inventory management tools - including a regular report that clearly identifies inactive inventory. "That helped us find about $130,000 worth of dead stock," Holland says. "We're working on cutting that inventory loose and reinvesting the dollars we collect into class A items."

Holland says that any distributor using an Activant solution could benefit from working with an Application Consultant. "Maybe you use the purchasing module to its fullest capacity, but you're not using 50 percent of order entry," he says. "There's always something an Application Consultant can help you can learn that will save you time and money. Isn't that the point of investing in all of this technology?"

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