North Coast Electric Enhances Analytics With MITS

Seattle-based North Coast Electric, founded in 1913, is a family-owned electrical distributor with 34 locations across the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Arizona. The company, consistently ranked in the top 25 electrical distributors by Electrical Wholesaling, supplies a wide range of electrical equipment to the electrical contractor, factory automation, industrial maintenance/repairs/operating and commercial and institutional markets.


North Coast Electric decided to replace a 20-year-old legacy business system with Epicor Eclipse, a full-range enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solution designed specifically for distributors. To ensure both security and efficient operation of their Eclipse system, North Coast requires all analysis and reporting be conducted on a separate server, housing access-tuned data to be synchronized daily with the operational system.


Fortunately, MITS’ solution can be deployed in this fashion, creating “hypercubes”—analytics-ready data environments—and “report sources” used for creating operational reports, all stored separately from operational data.


Results:
MITS Distributor Analytics provides North Coast with actionable information and insights. Business users are able to access, create and customize reports themselves, and convert them into Microsoft® Excel®, PDF files or e-mails, freeing the company’s IT personnel for more complex tasks. By moving the bulk of their report processing to a dedicated MITS Report server, 90 percent of North Coast’s reporting is now done away from the Eclipse server.


Many of the refinements to MITS Discover and MITS Report, made at North Coast’s request, reflect a proven business model that can be leveraged by other MITS customers in the distribution world and beyond.


To learn more about MITS Distributor Analytics, visit their Customer Case Studies page.


New Software Research Guides Available

Finding that you cannot keep up with all the changes in the latest software?

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Read our Mid-Year Supplements.

(Direct link, http://www.software4distributors.com/downloads/2016_Mid_Year_Supplement.pdf)

Developed through a partnership with Industrial Distribution, Industrial Supply, Contractor Supply Magazine and Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services, these 12 page Supplement Guides provide valuable, independently researched information. Each Guide details software company information, identifies vertical markets, highlights functions and technology features, new developments to the software package, shows graphs of the user range, basic entry price point, sales channel (how and where the software is sold), along with company contact information. The Supplement Guides provide everything you need to know when beginning your software selection and evaluation process.

Distribution Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Distribution_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016DSG

Manufacturing Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Manufacturing_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016MFG

Visit our website to learn more about the Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services and to use our Software Features Comparison Wizard.

Chelford Farm Supplies Boosts Earnings With Vision33

Established in 1975, Chelford Farm Supplies provides equestrian clothing and footwear, farm supplies and feed, garden and forest machinery and shooting equipment, clothing and ammunition throughout the United Kingdom.


In addition to a brick and mortar outlet, Chelford also operates a successful online store. To keep up with the latest equestrian brands and farming products meant cycling through stock three times a year. However, by time the inventory grew to over 24,000 products the company needed a business tool to increase their capacity for managing more inventory without increasing the number of employees.


Chelford knew it needed a new business management application and spent time carefully evaluating many applications on the market. Say Sarah Kranz, finance director, Chelford Farm Supplies. “SAP Business One comes with a fantastic reputation; it really does what it says on the box. After seeing a software demonstration, we were impressed by its flexibility and ability to integrate with our retail and online business”.


Vision33’s dedicated support team mapped out the company’s requirements; integration points with its web store, MRP requirements and identifying manual processes that could be automated. The implementation took just a few months and after the go-live, the results were immediate. With full purchase ordering through receiving and invoicing the company has identified thousands of pounds in discrepancies. But for Chelford the biggest benefit was in the amount of time saved. “We can now spend more time on value-added tasks instead of things like manual data input”, explains Kranz. “If we were doing a payment run for our suppliers it used to take the whole day. Now with SAP Business One that same process takes half an hour”.


To learn more, visit Vision33's Customer News page.


New Software Research Guides Available

Finding that you cannot keep up with all the changes in the latest software?

Want to know how the software's features and functions can assist you?

Please contact snelson@bswllc.com for more information about these latest editions.

Read our Mid-Year Supplements.

(Direct link, http://www.software4distributors.com/downloads/2016_Mid_Year_Supplement.pdf)

Developed through a partnership with Industrial Distribution, Industrial Supply, Contractor Supply Magazine and Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services, these 12 page Supplement Guides provide valuable, independently researched information. Each Guide details software company information, identifies vertical markets, highlights functions and technology features, new developments to the software package, shows graphs of the user range, basic entry price point, sales channel (how and where the software is sold), along with company contact information. The Supplement Guides provide everything you need to know when beginning your software selection and evaluation process.

Distribution Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Distribution_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016DSG

Manufacturing Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Manufacturing_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016MFG

Visit our website to learn more about the Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services and to use our Software Features Comparison Wizard.

Europe Watch Group Selects NetSuite For Global Growth

Europe Watch Group BV, the official worldwide distributor of the CLUSE and Cortese watch brands to customers and retailers in 120 countries, has recently selected NetSuite OneWorld to support its global expansion plans. Europe Watch Group plans to run its mission-critical business processes on NetSuite including accounting, financials, inventory management, order management, multi-currency, reporting and analytics.

Founded in 2013 and based in Amsterdam, the company’s management quickly recognized that the rapid growth of the company was limited by software constraints. Accounting, fulfillment, and ecommerce were siloed processes, leading to a great deal of error-prone, repetitive and manual tasks.


After considering a variety of solutions, Europe Watch Group selected NetSuite OneWorld. NetSuite OneWorld will give the company insights into manufacturing operations in China and fulfillment partner and warehouse inventories around the world. The company is planning to open warehouse locations in Hong Kong and the United States soon, and NetSuite's cloud architecture will make it easy to deploy to new facilities.


Europe Watch Group now sells over 1 million watches annually and expects to multiply that volume in the near future. The centralized record keeping and analysis in NetSuite will make it easier for management to understand growth and demand patterns, and better respond to market opportunities.


NetSuite provides a suite of cloud-based financials/Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and omnichannel commerce software that runs the business of more than 30,000 companies, organizations, and subsidiaries in more than 100 countries. To learn more, visit the NetSuite Newsroom.


New Software Research Guides Available

Finding that you cannot keep up with all the changes in the latest software?

Want to know how the software's features and functions can assist you?

Please contact snelson@bswllc.com for more information about these latest editions.

Read our Mid-Year Supplements.

(Direct link, http://www.software4distributors.com/downloads/2016_Mid_Year_Supplement.pdf)

Developed through a partnership with Industrial Distribution, Industrial Supply, Contractor Supply Magazine and Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services, these 12 page Supplement Guides provide valuable, independently researched information. Each Guide details software company information, identifies vertical markets, highlights functions and technology features, new developments to the software package, shows graphs of the user range, basic entry price point, sales channel (how and where the software is sold), along with company contact information. The Supplement Guides provide everything you need to know when beginning your software selection and evaluation process.

Distribution Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Distribution_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016DSG

Manufacturing Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Manufacturing_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016MFG

Visit our website to learn more about the Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services and to use our Software Features Comparison Wizard.

Bruce Supply Chooses Mincron's Warehouse Manager

For more than thirty years, Bruce Supply Corp., a distributor of plumbing, heating, electrical, PVF, drainage and specialty products, has been serving customers in New York City and the surrounding areas. Bruce Supply operates from four locations — two in Brooklyn, NY, one in Valley Stream, NY, and one in Keasbey, NJ.




In looking for a Warehouse Manager System application at their new distribution center in New Brunswick, NJ, Bruce Supply chose Mincron, and earlier this year went live with Mincron's StockSmart. Mincron’s 100% implementation success rate and flexible, scalable, integrated system were key attributes for adoption.




The StockSmart warehouse management system allows distributors to accurately and quickly ship orders while maintaining 99.9% inventory accuracy. It is designed to work equally well with small branch warehouses as well as massive distribution centers. The system automates warehouse workloads, minimizes disruptions and enables management to react and respond quickly to meet any of their customers’ special needs. It also helps distributors maximize their use of available space, equipment and personnel.




To read more, and learn about the benefits Mincron can bring to your business, visit the Mincron Newsroom.




New Software Research Guides Available

Finding that you cannot keep up with all the changes in the latest software?

Want to know how the software's features and functions can assist you?

Please contact snelson@bswllc.com for more information about these latest editions.

Read our Mid-Year Supplements.

(Direct link, http://www.software4distributors.com/downloads/2016_Mid_Year_Supplement.pdf)

Developed through a partnership with Industrial Distribution, Industrial Supply, Contractor Supply Magazine and Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services, these 12 page Supplement Guides provide valuable, independently researched information. Each Guide details software company information, identifies vertical markets, highlights functions and technology features, new developments to the software package, shows graphs of the user range, basic entry price point, sales channel (how and where the software is sold), along with company contact information. The Supplement Guides provide everything you need to know when beginning your software selection and evaluation process.

Distribution Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Distribution_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016DSG

Manufacturing Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Manufacturing_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016MFG

Visit our website to learn more about the Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services and to use our Software Features Comparison Wizard.

Nella Cutlery Streamlines Sales Processes With Blue Link

Founded in 1952, Nella Cutlery Toronto is a distributor of food processing equipment and supplies, provides knife sharpening services, and operates a retail outlet and showroom. Separate systems managed the various parts of the business – some manual, some automated but disconnected. In the absence of integration between these systems, Nella performed a significant amount of duplicate data entry, and had to manually combine reports from the distinct systems in order to evaluate company performance.


Nella wanted a system that would remove the need for duplicate data entry, and would provide quick, easy and accurate access to key business information such as sales history, customer service and financial information. After reviewing several different options, Nella decided on Blue Link Elite as the software solution that could deliver on all their needs, within budget.


Since implementing, Nella has experienced the following benefits:

• Streamlining of the sales process: Nella now processes orders and invoices through a fast, user-friendly interface, saving time and improving the qualitative interaction with customers.
• Elimination of duplicate entry: The time savings realized by eliminating duplicate entry, manual tracking and invoicing, and maintaining separate systems is estimated at several person-days every month.
• Reduced administration time and delays: The ability to quickly recall previous transactions to the screen saves the staff at Nella several hours every week. Information lookups that used to take minutes or, in some cases, hours, now take mere seconds.
• Improved control over receivables and cash flow: The receivables collection process is easier and more effective, because all data necessary to complete a collection call is available in real time.

Additional benefits include:
•More than one user able to do the same activity at one time (order entry, record payment).
•The data entry by code or name reduces the scope for user errors.
•Security is higher with a password protection to different levels in different modules.
•Exporting reports to Excel to be able to fine tune them as needed.
•Technical support is easy to access. Someone is always available.


To read more about the Nella implementation of Blue Link, visit the Blue Link Case Studies page.


New Software Research Guides Available

Finding that you cannot keep up with all the changes in the latest software?

Want to know how the software's features and functions can assist you?

Please contact snelson@bswllc.com for more information about these latest editions.

Read our Mid-Year Supplements.

(Direct link, http://www.software4distributors.com/downloads/2016_Mid_Year_Supplement.pdf)

Developed through a partnership with Industrial Distribution, Industrial Supply, Contractor Supply Magazine and Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services, these 12 page Supplement Guides provide valuable, independently researched information. Each Guide details software company information, identifies vertical markets, highlights functions and technology features, new developments to the software package, shows graphs of the user range, basic entry price point, sales channel (how and where the software is sold), along with company contact information. The Supplement Guides provide everything you need to know when beginning your software selection and evaluation process.

Distribution Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Distribution_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016DSG

Manufacturing Software Guide: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/2016_BSW_Manufacturing_Interactive_Website_Guide.pdf?utm_source=DownloadInteractive&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=2016MFG

Visit our website to learn more about the Brown Smith Wallace Advisory Services and to use our Software Features Comparison Wizard.