Activant Prelude Helps Benco Dental Increase Sales and Lower Costs

An Activant Prelude Success Story

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Ask Rick Cohen, CIO for Benco Dental, how he pulled more sales and capped operations expenses over the last four years, and he'll tell you: "Prelude."

Challenge:

Help a PA-based distributor of dental equipment and supplies increase sales and lower operational costs

Solutions:

Activant Prelude

Benefits:

Increased sales 39 percent
Held operational cost increases to 19 percent
Increased amount of, and access to, customer data
Improved data tracking increases accountability, which helps pinpoint where training is needed

Since the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania-based distributor of dental equipment and supplies switched distribution systems from an "overpatched" version of SHIMS to Activant Prelude™ in 2000, the company has boosted sales 39 percent while holding operational cost increases to a mere 19 percent. "That's a pretty impressive story," says Cohen.

Benco's Prelude solution runs on an RS6000 model 6M1, serving 350 users in three distributions centers (including headquarters) and almost 30 showrooms across the country. "It's the software platform that every transaction from beginning to end goes through," says Keith Budurka, Benco's network manager.

In addition to the basic system, Budurka says Benco added several upgrade packages to Prelude, including MITS data warehousing, WMS warehouse module, PRC development software, Double Vision screen sharing, and Optio print capabilities for a comprehensive, feature-rich, company-wide solution.

"Our customer service people have an amazing amount of customer data at their fingertips during calls thanks to this solution," says Tina Kozloski, customer service project coordinator. "Everything is very intuitive and easy to use, offering customer info on demand in pop-up windows and providing drill-down details with the flick of a backslash key."

According to Kosloski, data tracking on every order has created a high level of accountability among sales and service reps, as every detail of a transaction is captured and readily available. "We've quickly spotted areas where training is needed and improved," Kosloski says.

In the warehouse, Mike Mangan, operations special projects coordinator, reports similar results. Using WMS bar coding capabilities, Mangan can "see" exactly where every order is in transit for better inventory management.

"It helps us avoid overstocking situations and better balance our inventory across three distribution centers," concludes Mangan. "The cost savings are considerable when you don't have to send separate carts from other warehouses to fill an order. Most of our orders ship complete on the first pass."

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