Activant Trading Partner Connect Keeps Distributor at the Fore of the New Economy

To keep your business moving forward in the current economic climate, you need to go beyond merely accepting technology. You need to excel through technology and continually ask yourself where the next advance could take your business. Based in New Orleans, Oliver H. Van Horn Co., LLC, a fourth-generation, family-run business, has taken this progressive approach to serving the machine tool industry for years, using technology not only to streamline their business processes but also to create completely new ways of operating. Now, they are poised to further outdistance the competition by embracing Activant's revenue-boosting e-commerce offerings. With applications like Activant Trading Partner Connect, an Internet trading network, Oliver H. Van Horn is at the fore of technology, improving the way they conduct business with every new opportunity.

That progressive attitude is the reason Oliver H. Van Horn chose Activant as a technology partner. From Activant Acclaim to Trading Partner Connect, Oliver H. Van Horn has moved forward with Activant solutions since installing their first truly modern information system in 1987. Because of the company's proficient adoption of new technology, Activant often uses it as a beta test site for its new applications. The management of Oliver H. Van Horn is excited about using new technology and eager to help Activant show other customers how to get the most value from it.

A History With Activant

Having used Activant solutions for over a decade, Oliver H. Van Horn has seen the industry change dramatically and trusts Activant as a technology partner to keep the company on the leading edge of ideas. "Your technology partner should not only satisfy your current needs; it should also keep an eye to the future, and prepare you for what you will need to continue to compete," says Lee Eagan, CEO of Oliver H. Van Horn.

Eagan sees how initiatives like Trading Partner Connect are part of the same trend that attracted Oliver H. Van Horn to Activant more than a decade ago. "Just like when we moved from 200-HT to the XL program to Acclaim, we got all of our satellite locations better connected," he says. "Activant is still doing what it has always done for our business: increase efficiency and facilitate better communication."

Excited to be part of Trading Partner Connect

Oliver H. Van Horn has fully implemented is Trading Partner Connect, an Internet trading network that uses Activant enterprise solutions and the Internet to streamline business processes among distributors and suppliers/ manufacturers. "We think that Trading Partner Connect will revolutionize our industry," says Eagan. "Since it rationalizes catalog numbers for products, we can look at and use another distributor's stock. It allows us to become a virtual major corporation. It widens our catalog nearly exponentially every time a new distributor signs up."

But the implications for distributor's sharing inventory goes beyond mere product choice, Eagan explains, "If you have 10 percent of your stock that's not moving and Trading Partner Connect lets another distributor move it for you, imagine the kind of extra revenue generation we're talking about. It's huge. Activant is the only software provider in this market space to offer this type of application. So to me, you can't afford not to have Activant because you won't survive in the future without Trading Partner Connect. At Oliver H. Van Horn, we consider this a good example of how Activant has helped us stay in the technology vanguard in our industry."

Creating the Distributor of the Future

With the dawn of Internet commerce in the durable goods distribution market space, Oliver H. Van Horn benefited from Activant's e-business solutions as a technology visionary and beta partner for Trading Partner Connect by conducting transactions online immediately. Oliver H. Van Horn matches the customer service and familiarity of a family-owned business with the sleek business processes provided by the most comprehensive enterprise solutions and Internet commerce applications on the market. Through their adept use of new technology, Oliver H. Van Horn has laid its stake in the New Economy and looks to be a leader for generations to come.

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