Information Builders > Case Studies > WebFOCUS Delivers Timely Information to United Stationers Sales Staff

WebFOCUS Delivers Timely Information to United Stationers Sales Staff

Company Size

1,000+

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

WebFOCUS
FOCUS

Tech Stack

Windows 2000 server
Mainframe systems

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

Retail

Applicable Functions

Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Inventory Management
Supply Chain Visibility

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

United Stationers Supply Company is the largest U.S. wholesaler of business products, with revenues of nearly $4 billion. The company offers a broad range of products, including technology products, traditional office products, office furniture, janitorial and breakroom supplies, and industrial supplies. United Stationers serves customers in every major market segment, including independent dealers, contract stationers, office superstores, computer products resellers, office products wholesalers, mail order companies, drug and grocery store chains, e-commerce merchants, and other retailers. The company has a vast network of distribution centers and sales associates who are often on the move, meeting customers in different locations.

The Challenge

United Stationers, the largest U.S. wholesaler of business products, faced a challenge of providing their traveling sales associates with access to customer and product sales data on the mainframe while eliminating high printing and distribution costs. The sales associates were in different locations, far from the distribution center where they could get access to information about the customer they would meet the next day. The company was going through a significant amount of paper as thousands of pages of mainframe reports were printed out of the Customer Analysis Reporting System (CARS) and distributed to field staff – two to three weeks after the end of each month. The recipients of this bounty then tried to extract the data they needed that month, data that would have been far more useful if they had received it two weeks earlier.

The Solution

United Stationers decided to add a Web-based front-end to the mainframe systems, using WebFOCUS. This powerful solution for creating data-driven Web sites not only had all the capabilities that United Stationers was looking for – easy creation of Web interfaces, including drop-down lists, graphical views of data, and drill-down viewing of the underlying data – but plugged almost directly into the data-access programs that United Stationers was already running on its mainframe. A Windows 2000 server provides the Web site, but the data remains on the mainframe, eliminating the need to export data or build a special database for the Web server. The Web-based version of CARS lets field staff select from six main categories and 26 subcategories of products to see data that is current as of the previous day, giving sales staff a far more dynamic and accurate picture of how their customers are doing.

Operational Impact

Sales associates now have immediate access to the most recent data about customers and sales.
Customers get improved guidance about sales trends.
Distribution centers have adopted the system for many of their reporting needs.
The company has achieved a standard reporting interface that delivers consistent results, while offering greater flexibility and reporting depth than ever before.
The system has about 500 users, some of whom weren’t part of the original plan. For example, staff in distribution centers have access to powerful enterprise inventory and planning tools on the mainframe, but have discovered that many of the reports they need for day-to-day use are much easier to retrieve over the Web.

Quantitative Benefit