Investing in problem solving
By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 8/1/1998
A few years ago the two owners of C.H. Bull Co. realized that being a problem solver for their customers increasingly depended upon the company's information technology.After outlasting an expensive proprietary system developed in the 1970s, Andy Bull and Stan Sheppard early this year began upgrading the firm's IT systems for internal operations and delivering product information -- at a cost of about $70,000.
They bought a so-called Raid Five system with four hard drives that automatically back each other up to prevent system shutdowns, which had been a problem in the past. The system also has redundant power supplies to protect against electrical failures. C.H. Bull connected to a fractional T-1 line to provide all 20 workstations with Internet access, allowing employees to download product data, send e-mail and more.
The company also has two communications servers, including one for its Web site, which so far includes a listing of suppliers, company information and contacts. It also maintains a CD-ROM tower with disks filled with catalogs and other vendor information, which can be e-mailed quickly to customers.
Service manager Bob Maguire, who administers the company's IT systems, says the investment is well worth it. Employees send and receive faxes from their desktops, outside sales people connect to obtain product data and much more. So far, about one in five of the company's suppliers have online catalogs, and those numbers should rise soon.
Fred Young, CEO of the Young Radiator Co., which has sold equipment through C.H. Bull since 1934, was impressed by how quickly the "new" generation at Bull adopted his company's electronic RepNet, which provides catalogs, stock status and quotes, engineering specifications -- even a virtual technical library. To connect with RepNet, Bull employees access Young Radiator's local area network via a dial-up modem.
"Customers get answers fast. They don't have to look up anything," Young says. "They call Bull and they (Bull employees) have the ability to get price quotations the same day on the system. This isn't (finding) a wrench, this is heat transfer theory and sophisticated systems."
Sheppard and Bull see that kind of service as a key to their future. "We're not a sales company. We're an information company," Andy Bull says.
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