Driven by customer-oriented processes, Cohn & Gregory opened in a 500 sq. ft. office and warehousing facility in 1977, and has since grown into five branches with warehouses totaling more than 100,000 sq. ft. Cohn & Gregory is “focused on engineered products rather than commodity-driven items,” said Scott Mahaffey, president, Cohn & Gregory. “This business is about meeting customer needs 24/7. If you can't do that, they'll just go somewhere else. As a result, we're always looking to improve with efficiencies that ensure a competitive edge.”
In 2014, Cohn & Gregory's latest advancement came with the implementation of the Prophet 21 customer relationship management (CRM) system from Epicor. “We just didn't have the ability to extract the business data needed to make real-time decisions,” offers Mahaffey, “Our old system was so segmented and tedious to use. We needed a more flexible, user-friendly solution that could pull metrics and provide the analytics necessary to streamline operations and increase profits.”
Enhanced CRM Efficiencies
Prophet 21 provides a three-pronged approached to CRM. This begins by enabling sales representatives to detail the progress of leads and purchases through categories that define opportunities, sales stages, and lead pipelines. It also actually tracks customers' buying habits and anticipates needs, going well beyond the simple maintenance of customer addresses and phone numbers offered by other systems. Prophet 21 software also allows companies to fax and e-mail from the solution, generate lead call lists, and manage call center activities that increase customer bases at a minimal cost.
In addition, Prophet 21 manages inventory at both the warehouse and enterprise levels, automatically determining if orders can or should be filled from a single or multiple locations. Once orders are picked, inventory management screens reveal the different stocking levels, the number of items picked for shipment, and their place in the process. It even creates a purchase order detailing the individual items that need to be picked from each warehouse location.
The most practical choice in the market
“Prophet 21 was the most practical of all the systems we reviewed,” said Mahaffey. “It certainly was the most impressive program available in the marketplace from our perspective. We especially liked the ability to drill down to different data layers and access real-time inventory information. Subsequently, we've automated many of our business practices, enabling us to service customers more quickly and efficiently than any time in the past.”
According to Mahaffey, this includes easily clicking on a button to send updated order acknowledgments to clients, informing customers about the status of orders before they reach out, and streamlining all order entry and purchase order procedures.
Fostering future growth
“Operations are expected to expand greatly over the next few years with sales exported into numerous new areas,” adds Mahaffey. “Prophet 21 has done a fantastic job of constantly providing our employees with timely access to information exactly when needed. It's also given us the capacity to operate like a much larger organization and differentiate ourselves from the competition through the accuracies afforded through this technology. We have a very aggressive growth plan and Prophet 21 is fundamental to achieving those goals.”