Success Stories

Activant Prophet 21 and Complementary Products Increase Efficiencies and Improve Customer Service at World-Class Electronics Distributorship

For any distributor, managing thousands of customers, hundreds of thousands of stock items, and millions of part numbers is no minor undertaking. It is especially challenging when saddled with a legacy operating system.

Just ask the management at Herman Electronics. "A few years ago, we had the basic functionality to process orders and manage our inventory, but we couldn't take the next step to give our customers the service they deserved," says David Wolf, vice president at Herman.

To progress, Wolf knew he had to move his company from a Business Basic-written system to a modern SQL server solution. After an exhaustive, consultant-guided search, complete with countless software demonstrations, he made his decision: Activant Prophet 21.

Wolf found Prophet 21 to be highly scalable and flexible - just what he needed to grow his thriving 40-year old business. "Functionality-wise, order taking and shipping capabilities are much more robust in Prophet 21 than in any other package," Wolf says.

Improved Processes

Herman, one of the U.S.'s largest electronics supply houses, is a factory-authorized replacement parts distributor for a veritable 'Who's Who' list of electronics manufacturers. Suppliers include Sony, Panasonic, Phillips, Magnavox, Thomson, Zenith, and Hitachi. Always on the cutting edge, these manufacturers pride themselves on a constant stream of original products - complete with thousands upon thousands of new parts.

Every time a customer needed one of those new parts, it took Herman's employees up to two days to find the item and place the order. The process involved taking an order for a non-stock part, leaving the business system to check a vendor's Web site for stock availability, then calling the customer back - usually, the next day - to confirm the order. Many times, the customer already obtained the part from another distributor.

Now, since Herman uses Prophet 21's Pricing Service module to keep every one of its vendors' stock items in its database, customer satisfaction and sales have increased. In one phone call, customers can order a brand-new, factory-authorized part, and know when to expect it - before they hang up.

Customer Relationship Enhancements

Prophet 21's scalable, open database has proven to enhance Herman's customer relationships. For example, if a customer wants an invoice delivered via e-mail or on an Excel spreadsheet instead of via the U.S. postal service, accounts receivable staff can easily accomplish that task. "The customer gets the information they want in the format they want it - and we save on the cost of a stamp," Wolf says. The solution also automatically e-mails hundreds of customers nightly order status reports, and sends vendors scheduling and purchase order reports.

Additionally, if a customer has a question about his account after 6 p.m. EST, he can visit Herman's B2B Seller Web site, www.hermanelectronics.com, to check order status, view invoices, and place an order. "Customers get the information they need faster, and it's less work for us," says Wolf.

Roughly a year after Herman's fully integrated Web-based storefront went live, orders processed through the Web site increased exponentially. On any given day, customers entered 10 to 15 percent of their orders on the B2B Seller site. Additionally, between 25 and 30 percent of orders from customers who had never before dealt with Herman were processed through the site.

Increased Efficiencies

Prophet 21's integration with a variety of business tools designed to reduce costs, increase sales, and streamline business processes have resulted in increased efficiencies across the board at Herman.

ProtoBase, transaction-processing software, has streamlined credit card transactions, and Pathguide, a warehouse-management system, has increased order-picking accuracy in Herman's cavernous stockrooms, resulting in fewer returns.

Herman officials have seen the greatest return from Clippership, a manifest shipping solution that manages many different multi-carrier requirements and simplifies automation and shipment rates. Prior to installing Clippership, 10 staffers shipped between 500 and 600 boxes per day. A year after installation, five people shipped at least 800 - and as many as 900 - boxes per day, at the rate of one box every 15 seconds.

"Things that used to take four hours to complete now take less than an hour," concludes Wolf. When staff members complain when a computer takes too long to process something, he just sighs. "Short memories," he laughs.

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

Back to Top