Case Study

A Powerful Supply House –
DDI System Distribution Management Software Powers Cape Electric Supply

With nearly three decades of electrical supply house experience, Ray Ducharme understands how to operate a successful wholesale distribution business. From the late 1970s to 1992, he worked for two different supply houses. Ducharme benefited by receiving a real-world understanding of the inner workings of a supply house. Armed with strong industry expertise, Ducharme and his business partner opened Cape Electric Supply in the town of South Dennis - located in Cape Cod. Today, the supply house has expanded its workforce and serves the area's electrical parts needs from its single-location warehouse. Cape Electric Supply, with increased revenues in 2003 and 2004, is a traditional wholesaler of electrical supplies.

Inundated with six competitors in the Cape Cod region, Ducharme is well aware that technology is a key differentiator and vital to the profitability of a supply house. "Our first technology solution came from a large distribution vendor, but it wasn't tailored to our smaller operations and seemed too generic for our purposes," said Ducharme, president of Cape Electric Supply. "We then opted for an 'off the shelf solution,' and even tried a homemade software system but both had many holes and lacked key features. All of these temporary fixes kept my supply house running but we needed more functionality if we wanted to take our business to the next level in our region."

According to Ducharme, he went through a two-year evaluation process for a replacement solution. "We were steered to DDI by a friend who runs a plumbing supply house, and he recommended DDI System because the solution worked so well for his business," he said. "After we viewed a demo of the system, we contacted several DDI customer references. Every response was positive with glowing feedback on the solution. We selected DDI and we were pleasantly surprised with the wealth of features included in the system at such a low price point."

Cape Electric Supply worked with the DDI team to transfer customer and product data from the old system into the DDI System Distribution Management Software. "The whole process took only two days," Ducharme added. "We were quickly up and running and using the system proficiently."

Ducharme is using DDI for purchase orders, inventory control, account receivables, price matrices, and daily and monthly financial reporting. "Recently, we added the signature capture feature on all invoices. "That went so smoothly that we are seriously considering upgrading our system to include barcoding functionality," he said.

Cape Electric has been pleased with customer support provided on all technical issues "When we've had to call for minor queries, technicians were always efficient in troubleshooting issues on our system and very friendly in their communication," he said.

According to Ducharme, Cape Electric counter employees found the solution to be very easy-to-use. "We're not computer wizards. But, there is no need to be so technically proficient since DDI is so intuitive and delivers on the functionality we originally envisioned," he said. "Everything we need - from item pricing and customer invoices - is captured on one screen, at the touch of a button. DDI has truly transformed our supply house into a more technology-savvy business!"