Case Study

A Perfect Fit -
Sterling Supply Optimizes DDI System Distribution Management Software to Power its Business

With just a few items and a length of pipe, Ben Samson set out in his station wagon in search of his dream to open a plumbing supply warehouse. In 1948, his dream was realized as he and his wife, Bernice, opened the doors of Sterling Supply to customers in downtown Chicago. Soon after, the company outgrew its facilities, and moved to its current and larger location in Lisle, Illinois - a suburb of Chicago. For more than four decades, Ben continually focused on keeping his business competitive, and that commitment lives on today through Bernice and her youngest son, Roger, to maintain and grow business operations. Today, the company extends its customer reach to the Chicago area, Indiana, Wisconsin, and as far west as Rockford. Sterling Supply is an established wholesaler of quality plumbing products and supplies.

Customer Service is critical in any industry but especially prevalent in wholesale distribution. However, without the proper technology tools, providing those levels of customer service can be a challenge.

Thirteen years ago, Sterling printed and tracked all invoicing and order forms manually relying on the tedium of three-part forms and white out. Sterling's largest customer soon complained about illegibility of forms and threatened to pull their business. This prompted the supply house to hastily purchase a system that provided many features that were not fully optimized or necessary for the business. According to Victoria Kosirog, Office Manager/MIS for Sterling Supply, the system was not conducive to plumbing supply. "While the system was extensive, it wasn't user-friendly enough for our line of work," she said. "We realized we needed help, and hired Ponvia, a consulting firm, to advise us." Kosirog and her team put some of the largest names in distribution software through rigorous testing and decided to select DDI System. "DDI was the most impressive because it was not only robust, but a perfect system for smaller size companies like Sterling," she said.

To gain acceptance of DDI, Kosirog wanted to break the stigma of the previous inefficient system and have employees start fresh with a solution offering an entirely new interface and industry-specific functionality. "Our last system was linear and took forever to view an invoice. But, DDI is so seamless and relational," she added. Kosirog was also drawn to DDI's expanded functionality including viewing inventory pricing, tracking current and year prior gross profits, forecasting, and inventory ranking to easily see which items are selling better than others. Sterling Supply carries millions of dollars of substantial inventory and needed a strong solution to manage it effectively. "Before DDI, we had no idea what we were charging for inventory, or if we were profitable for the year. The system is so intuitive and gives us so much intelligence that outside salesmen have a real-time, birds eye view into our inventory to provide instant product information for customers."

Sterling is also optimizing DDI's capability to automate the process of drop-shipping products directly from the vendor to the customer. "Before automating this process, there would typically be layers of people and paperwork," Kosirog added.

In the future, Sterling plans on upgrading the system to include a web interface for outside salespersons to order items online. Kosirog is also exploring the purchase of a module that integrates with Microsoft Excel for flexible analysis, including tables and graphs. She also sees a potential to use DDI's Electronic Signature Capture to digitally imprint proof-of-delivery signatures on customer invoices. Signature Capture eliminates multi-part, dot matrix sales order forms and tedious, time consuming filing.

"I would certainly recommend the DDI System for a distributor of our size," said Kosirog. "With DDI, our business has been vastly improved with efficiencies in customer service, shipping and revenue monitoring. Our employees can view the same screen with all items entered in one central location - right at their fingertips! DDI truly powers our business."