Success Stories

Activant Acclaim Helps Small Distributor Stand His Ground with Larger Competitors

The father of current PSI president, Duane Bingel, founded PSI Industries, Inc. in 1965, when, as a chief engineer for a manufacturer in Chicago, he was presented with the opportunity to start a distributorship in the Memphis area.

Originally a distributor for one manufacturer, in recent years PSI has seen an onslaught of integrated suppliers. "We have been forced to either work with integrated suppliers, or against them," says Bingel. "We choose to work with them, although we have to do that at a lower margin than we're used to selling the end-use customer at. Also, there is less customer loyalty out there as customers are more concerned with price.

"We try to be pro-active, rather than reactive. We read trade journals, attend conferences, go to users groups," continues Bingel. "We stay in touch with our customers and try to give them what they want. We have a sales force out there, keeping in touch with everyone from maintenance people to purchasing agents. We do it with a personal touch."

The Activant Connection

In 1986, PSI began looking at different types of software/hardware combinations to automate the business. They were about to go with an IBM system with third-party software, when they met an Activant rep. "He pulled a 4C unit out of his trunk," recalls Bingel. "Within 10 minutes we were set up and running with his demo. He was able to demo the entire system and all of us looked at each other in amazement and said 'This is what we want!' and it was all in one neat package."

Bingel and his employees were so impressed that they moved to Activant Acclaim in the late 1990s. "My pre-established relationship with Activant helped me to decide to move to Acclaim, instead of going to another software provider," says Bingel. "The alternative - moving to a totally different software vendor - was a consideration. Dollar for dollar, the prices were reasonably the same, but the cost of having to learn a new system and data conversion became the deciding factor. I also didn't trust the other companies who said, 'Trust me, it will go flawlessly' - I've heard horror stories about that. I know if I hadn't moved to Acclaim, I wouldn't have gotten the level of satisfaction I expect from an enterprise software solution."

Reliability, Consistency, and Time Savings

"The biggest thing I look for in a software provider is reliability," says Bingel. "I want somebody to talk to when something does go wrong and Activant does this very well. I always check Activant's Web-based support before I make a call. More than 80 percent of the time, I find the answers to my questions on the Internet."

"We're a small company and we have to go out there and play with the big boys if we are to survive," continues Bingel, who credits Acclaim with helping PSI remain successful. "Our pricing for either integrated suppliers or our end-user customers has to be consistent to give them less of a reason to go out and get multiple quotes. Our loyal customers appreciate this consistency. Acclaim provides the tools that give us access to all the necessary information that we need to make some of these pricing and customer service decisions."

After moving to Acclaim, Bingel and his staff immediately recognized the timesaving benefit of the solution. "If time is money, then Acclaim has saved us a lot of both," says Bingel who runs his business with only five employees. "I hate to think about all the staff I'd have to have to hire to do the business functions manually. I think everyone values their time a bit more now than they did in the past and Acclaim allows our employees to be more efficient. For example, Acclaim gives us a lot more customer and item information up front. If a customer calls and asks for pricing and availability and he's got past-due accounts, we can see that in Acclaim and get the situation resolved with a few key-clicks."

Bingel also notes that Acclaim greatly improves his inventory control. "My inventory turns are up 20 percent," he says. "I'm also able to track my dead stock and take advantage of some vendor's stock rotation programs so my actual SKUs are down 15 percent."

Playing with the Big Boys

Looking back, Bingel doesn't see how PSI could have survived without Acclaim. "We are a small company but our customers think that we are much larger than we are," says Bingel. "We have to live up to their expectations with respect to the level of customer service. Thankfully, Activant enhancements are often available before we even realize that we want or need them. I've really been impressed with Activant having the distribution industry insight that it does."

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