Success Stories

It took a financial crisis to help Laurie Gross improve her business. While the entire country was experiencing a serious economic slump, local businesses - including hers - seemed to be taking a particularly hard hit. She knew that to weather the storm, she'd have to cut costs. What she didn't know was which costs she should go after.

That's where Activant Eclipse™ came in. Her company had installed the solution in 1999, and by 2001, when the region's economy began to take a sharp turn southward, Gross was able to look at the data the system provided and make some smart decisions. "Eclipse helps you do what you need to do," she says. "And we needed to cut costs."

In fact, that cost-cutting exercise allowed the company to increase its mark-up by 9 percent and its gross margins as a percentage of sales by over 6 percent - even though its annual revenues for that same time period fell by nearly 13 percent.

At the end of Three Meetings, We Were Sold

Gross is president of Gross Electric, Inc., headquartered in Toledo, OH. With three branches in northwest Ohio and one in southeast Michigan, the company is the area's number one source for residential lighting and electrical products and has been family owned and operated since 1910.

After learning in 1998 that the system the company had been using would not be Y2K compatible, Gross and her team held three meetings with Eclipse. "At the end of those three meetings, we were sold," she explains. "We thought it was the most sales-friendly solution we'd seen - and now we can't imagine using anything else."

Helping the Business Run More Efficiently

When the time came to cut costs, Gross found that the Eclipse solution was able to help in two important ways. First, the system helped the company streamline its operations, allowing the business to run more efficiently and cost-effectively. Second, Eclipse provided Gross and her colleagues with the data they needed to determine where they could tighten up their processes and streamline operations.

For example, in its first three years of using Eclipse, Gross Electric cut its phone expenses by 25 percent, and from 2001 to 2003, slashed its postage costs by 40 percent thanks to the use of three complementary products: Eclipse Interface for Use with VSIFAX, Eclipse Outbound E-Mail, and Eclipse Business Connect EDI. What's more, the company saw its use of paper-related office supplies drop during that same timeframe.

"Those are significant savings," says Gross. "The reduction in postage expenses was entirely the result of being able to fax invoices." Right now, Gross estimates that 60 to 70 percent of the company's invoices are delivered via fax. And she says she's hoping that a majority of the rest will soon end up going out by e-mailentirely the result of being able to fax invoices." Right now, Gross estimates that 60 to 70 percent of the company's invoices are delivered via fax. And she says she's hoping

that a majority of the rest will soon end up going out by e-mail.

Built-in Tools Help Cut Costs

Gross Electric saw its warehouse and logistics-related expenses fall significantly - simply by taking advantage of the best practices features built into the Eclipse solution. They helped the company purchase materials more efficiently and at a greatly reduced cost.

At the same time, sophisticated tracking and reporting tools allowed Gross Electric to understand where, and how, they could improve their operations across virtually every functional area of the business. "Eclipse gives us the depth of information we need to make the right decisions," notes Steve Pereus, the company's COO. "There's so much information there, that I'm sure we still haven't tapped into all of it."

Built-in tools for proactively monitoring customers' credit limits helped the company lower its collection costs by 40 percent and shrink its bad-debt expenses by 77 percent. And they enabled Gross Electric to cut its inbound freight charges by 46 percent. "We can charge customers more for inbound freight now, because we can actually track it," says Pereus. "That means our salespeople can now add freight onto a ticket, and are more aware of transaction costs."

Reduce Overhead, Without Reducing Profits

The company has seen big savings in the warehouse, too. "Adjustments had always been a big bugaboo for us," admits Gross. "But by using Eclipse reports to monitor adjustments, we've saved about $8,000 a month." That same tracking process has also made it possible for Gross Electric to reduce its inventory. "The system lets us see what we've got and what we need. So we can see what's selling and what's not," she adds.

But it's not all about what's selling. It's about who's selling, too. Even though the company went from having 78 employees in 2000, to 62 in 2003, sales per employee rose by 10 percent over that period and gross profit per employee grew by 16 percent. Gross says Eclipse helped in that regard, too. "The solution allowed us to reduce our workforce, without reducing our profits. It lets us change our processes and the reports it issues let us see what happened and who did it. We can tell right away whether we're moving in the right direction," she says.

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

Back to Top