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When executives decide to implement a new enterprise software solution at their company, there is a certain amount of due diligence that must be done. A list of the top offerings has to be compiled. Literature needs to be pored over, and calls have to be made. Then there are the demos, site visits, and negotiations. It all adds up to a lengthy and intensive process that hopefully matches the company with the right technology.

Jack Van Sledright did his due diligence in 1992. Commissioned by his superiors at J. Mollema and Son and spurred by a Gordon Graham-penned document listing the top distribution software packages, Van Sledright investigated three solutions, one of which was Activant Prelude.

"I had a really good feeling about Prelude right from the start," remembers Van Sledright. "After the requisite demos and site visits, there was a comfort level in the solution that told me it would be able to take us further down the road than the other ones we looked at."

Fast forward to 2006 when Commerce Corporation, a national leader in the lawn and garden distribution industry, acquired J. Mollema and Son to be its Grand Rapids, MI, location. Coincidentally, both companies were running the same solution, but while J. Mollema had stayed up to date with Prelude version 19.0, Commerce Corporation was on version 7.0.

"We already had an advanced software solution, so instead of spending another 18 months to two years investigating other offerings, we decided to just bring the rest of the company up to version 19.0," says Van Sledright. "Now it's a matter of taking the data from the other locations and merging it with the Grand Rapids data."

The Perfect Complement

A 28-year veteran of the company, Van Sledright began his career with J. Mollema and Son as a high-school student looking to earn money for college. From writing out invoices to calculating pricing by hand, many of his first tasks with the company involved manual processes that would soon become obsolete.

"By 1980, the company was ready for a computerized business system, and since I was going to school for computers, I was tasked with finding one," says Van Sledright. "We ended up going with IBM's Distribution Management Accounting System, which we used until 1992 when we found Prelude."

In that period, both the company and Van Sledright's responsibilities grew. He moved up the ladder into various management roles, eventually adopting his current role as Director of Finance, and the company quadrupled its sales. However, as sales increased and J. Mollema continued to expand, their technological requirements followed suit.

"The robustness of Prelude - the integration of modules, the access to data - perfectly complemented our growing business," Van Sledright says. "And we're still talking about it now, so it's obvious the solution has evolved with both our needs and industry trends." The numbers agree: J. Mollema was doing $12 million a year when they implemented Prelude. Now as Commerce Corporation Great Lakes, they're doing more than $30 million.

Something Special

Reflecting on the evolution of Prelude over the years, Van Sledright credits the team behind the solution with an uncanny ability to think outside the box and deliver features most users don't even realize they need. "They see what's coming down the pike," he says.

"I'll hear people talk at users group meetings about new functionality Activant has added to the solution, and my first thought is, 'I'm never going to use that'," Van Sledright continues. "Then six months later, somebody at my company inevitably asks me if Prelude has the exact capability that had been discussed at the meeting."

When it comes to functionality that he and the other executives at Commerce Corporation rely on day to day, Van Sledright is quick to point out the daily business statistics report he works from every morning. Providing a high-level view of business data such as inventory levels, receivables, sales, etc., the report summarizes the company's current status in several key areas.

"The logic of the report is to start at the top and drill down when you see anything out of the ordinary," he explains. "For example, if we see a spike in inventory, we can go in and see that we received five truckloads of a particular line, and then we can go further down into forecasting and confirm that we have a need for that much product - it's basically moving from a wide angle to a close-up."

As Director of Finance, Van Sledright often has to concern himself with details at the micro level, but the next challenge he and Commerce Corporation face - moving the company's Baltimore, MD, Lincoln, RI, and Cleveland, OH, locations onto Prelude version 19.0 - requires a macro solution.

"Sticking with Prelude is a win-win situation for Commerce Corporation," Van Sledright remarks. "The latest version is already up and running here, and the Grand Rapids staff has enough experience with it to train the entire company."

He concludes: "Prelude supported J. Mollema's growth for more than a decade, and the people behind the solution have always been sources of stability and support - we know we've got something special."

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