Success Stories

Activant Prophet 21 Increases Efficiency, Lowers costs, and Improves Bottom Line

For 20 years, HVAC Sales and Supply Company has served air conditioning and heating contracting, installation, and repair businesses from its Memphis, TN, headquarters. Over the years, they have managed to remain independent while a number of the local wholesalers they compete with have fallen prey to the consolidation movement in the industry. Many of those once independent wholesalers are now part of national operations, some with sales in excess of a billion dollars.

To combat this rising level of competition, HVAC Sales - with 36 employees in three locations - moved to Activant Prophet 21. "In order to give us the competitive edge, we need to utilize the latest technology intelligently," asserts Dennie Bomar, president of HVAC Sales and Supply Company. "It's the best way to increase our efficiency, lower our costs, and improve our bottom line.

"The reason that we invest in Activant is to try to move the boxes more efficiently, reduce our operational costs, and improve our customer service capabilities," Bomar adds.

The Right Place at the Right Time

Bomar's relationship with Activant began in 1987, when the company required a more sophisticated enterprise business solution. Bomar contacted three or four technology providers that he had seen in various trade publications; only Activant returned his call the same day.

Activant Prophet 21

Although it was the quick response time that initially triggered his decision to go with Activant, Bomar realizes that Activant has always been poised to meet HVAC Sales' needs. The company was one of the early users of Activant XL with branches. In 1997, they upgraded from XL to Activant Acclaim. A few years later, they sensed that a more robust solution would better help them meet their unique business needs, so they made the move to Activant Prophet 21.

With Prophet 21, Bomar notes that employees can effectively share information about their customers and products, data sheets, technical sheets and bulletins, and installation manuals. "Prophet 21 allows us to digitize information, like vendor catalog data, and then attach it to the record, ensuring that it is always current and accurate," Bomar describes.

"The fact that Prophet 21 operates on the SQL Server database offers a lot of flexibility in terms of our ability to capture relevant information," Bomar continues. "We're not limited to predetermined data fields or menu-driven reports. With the SQL Server database, we are virtually unlimited in terms of the type of information that we can extract and use in Microsoft Excel or Word or any other third party program, like Crystal Reports. We are only limited by our own creativity, in terms of what we want to know."

Flattening the Learning Curve

During implementation, HVAC Sales proved that they had a great deal of ingenuity as they trained employees - most of whom did not have any prior personal computer experience. Through the assistance of Activant Implementation Consultants, Web- and Computer-Based Training, and HVAC Sales' authored manuals, the company not only got its employees up to speed on Prophet 21, but after just seven weeks, almost every user was a fan of Windows-based solutions.

HVAC Sales also noticed a tremendous cost savings as Prophet 21 flattens the learning curve for new hires. They can more easily and confidently navigate Prophet 21's graphical user interface (GUI). Time to obtain information has been reduced significantly, too. Finding a technical bulletin, for instance, is simple because HVAC Sales links it to the item record and accesses it with a single mouse click. "An increase in efficiency equals a decrease in cost," Bomar says.

One of the things that HVAC Sales particularly likes about Prophet 21 is its ability to offer go-togethers. "Many times, new counter or sales people are not as familiar with all of the product lines as our more experienced employees," Bomar explains. "By using substitute items or go-togethers, even our newest employees can recommend additional items to our customers. This is certainly an additional revenue generator for us."

Support for the Future

"All the software out there is only as good as the people who back it up, and Activant has done a stellar job through the years of giving us the type of support that we need. And it has only gotten better with the Web support," continues Bomar. "Activant remains on the leading edge of what distribution software is all about. Couple that with the fact that I don't believe there is better support in the industry than Activant offers. Companies like us are not necessarily 'computer literate,' but we use this software aggressively, partly because Activant has done an excellent job of giving us support through the years, answering our questions and solving our problems."

HVAC Sales intends on continuing to make intelligent use of Prophet 21. "We know that this is a solution with which we can grow," asserts Bomar.

For more information on Activant's enterprise software solutions, please fill out our Web Contact Form.

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