October 2010
Agility Gives Harper Chambers Confidence
A little over five years ago, Steve Chambers, president of Harper Chambers Lumber Company in Tuscaloosa, AL, set out on a mission to find someone who wasn’t happy with their DMSi Agility Software. At the time, he was unhappy with the Activant CSD system he was using and was skeptical of other packages. “I was doing a lot of due diligence when looking into DMSi,” Chambers explained. “It became my mission to find someone who didn’t like DMSi and I still can’t find them.”
Flash forward to 2010, and Chambers now feels secure about his company’s business and accounting system, Agility. “On our old CSD system, I ran a ton of things outside of the system to make sure that my numbers were correct because I didn’t trust their reports,” Chambers said. “When we first got on Agility, I thought the system was wrong. Now I’m like, ‘what did I do wrong?’ because I know the system is right. It is always right.” The confidence Harper Chambers has in Agility’s data is a big shift from their past system, and so is the speed of the software. “I can instantly put my fingers on the numbers that are critical to run my business, so I can react if the numbers aren’t going the way that I want,” Chambers added.
Because Agility ensures Harper Chambers has an accurate inventory, they have completely changed business processes. “It used to be that we took inventory once a year, but I came to the realization that we were trying to get this thing right one time a year,” Chambers described. “I would rather have an inventory number that is 95 percent right everyday than 100 percent one time a year. So, we began a cycle counting procedure and now with Agility, we cycle count every day. It is just standard with our business.“
When they initially started using Agility, Harper Chambers was surprised at the depth of the software’s inventory control and management functionality. “For a long time, we didn’t look at DMSi because we had pigeonholed them as distribution/wholesaler operation software,” Chambers said. “Once we got to looking at it, we were blown away by the level of inventory control. No one else is anywhere close to where Agility is. It is laughable how far ahead it is.”
Having an accurate inventory enables Harper Chambers to provide better customer service by giving accurate product availability information to customers. “Our guys can feel comfortable saying there are two items out there,” Chambers explained. “If the computer says there are two out there, there are two out there.” The company also has better overall communication with customers. “The most seamless offering to our customers is through the laser controls, which shoots customers an e-mail or fax when a transaction occurs,” Chambers said. “That way, my sales guys aren’t burdened with a list of customers to send faxes or e-mails.”
Another business component that has greatly improved is Harper Chamber’s delivery process. They now have the ability to schedule orders/deliveries in the future and wait until the last minute to finalize and print the paperwork . “In our old software, there was no such thing as setting things up in the future. It was all paper files and we would print a pick ticket off and move it around,” Chambers said. “Now, everything is done on the system. We don’t want to commit them to paper until the last possible second and Agility lets us do that.”
Harper Chambers, like 90 percent of DMSi’s other Agility users, runs the software in a secure hosted format, or Software as a Service (SaaS). This allows the company to eliminate servers and all of the associated maintenance costs and to have access to the software from anywhere via a simple Internet connection. Harper Chambers is able to have confidence in the data and can access Agility’s robust features with plenty of speed to serve their customers. “Running Agility in the hosted environment is the best money I’ve spent,” Chambers added. “I don’t have to worry. If our building burns down, I’ll just take my laptop, go somewhere else, get on Agility and I am back up and running.”
In over five years running Agility, Harper Chambers has seen the evolution of the product and discovered how to make the most of the software. They now take advantage of Agility’s best practices, have revised their business processes to provide their customers with better service and are making better business decisions because they have more accurate information. “Thank goodness we implemented Agility when we did because now that things have turned down in the market, it has made it much easier to manage our business,” Chambers concluded.
About DMSi Software
DMSi Software is a privately held company providing software to nearly 400 building materials companies in North America. Since 1976, DMSi Software has consistently empowered its users to become more productive, competitive and efficient. For more information on DMSi Software, please call 800-347-6720 or visit dmsi.com.
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