How new, updated solutions made everything easier for three hardworking businesses.
As with all significant changes, transforming daily business operations requires hard work, a strong partnership, and meaningful collaboration on the way to lasting success. At Epicor, we help organizations lean into the big-picture benefits that accompany their bold initiatives. As the three business profiled here prove, having the courage and resolve to initiate real change can lead to happier customers, easier processes, and measurable results.
Goodwill Industries® of Northwest Ohio is dedicated to helping community members find employment opportunities. The income from the local Goodwill retail stores is a vital part of supporting this mission: well-run, successful Goodwill stores mean well-funded, expanding job training and placement programs. To truly achieve lasting success, Tim Kralovic, Vice President, Donated Goods, knew the company needed to move on from their manually-based operations to a modern cloud-based system.
Enter Epicor Propello. Ready to let go of temperamental, old-school registers and standalone credit card readers that weren’t dependable or easy to use, Goodwill Industries of NW Ohio embraced what Kralovic calls “an intuitive system”—a solution that could provide barcode scanning, SKU customization, and a loyalty program, all in a cloud environment that could still function even when offline.
After a successful integration with detailed support from the Epicor professional services team, the stores began using Propello. From the ease of onboarding employees to streamlining register closing activities at the end of the day, Goodwill Industries of NW Ohio realized immediate efficiency gains. By eliminating the manual counting of tills at closing, they saved two hours of payroll activities per day across each of the 15 locations.
They also introduced a points-based loyalty program, which cashiers can also easily access to keep customers up to date on current status and any impending rewards. This new program has been successful with shoppers as well as with the company’s bottom line. By replacing multiple one-day discounts with this single loyalty program, discounts now make up only 3.5% of sales instead of 5%—a notable savings for the company.
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Daniel Topp, VP of IT at TASi Measurement, had big goals for his measuring and monitoring business when he made the switch to Epicor Kinetic. Because TASi provides its measurement solutions to a wide range of industries, from life sciences to automotive, using production facilities around the globe, the company needed standardized processes and a common ERP system to optimize efficiency and productivity.
The company landed on this transformative solution when they selected Epicor Kinetic deployed in the cloud in 2017—and they’re still going strong. M&A is an essential part of TASi’s growth plan, and so far, six of their 16 businesses are already running Kinetic, with plans to convert two businesses per year annually.
The decision has paid off, streamlining everything from time-consuming manual accounts receivable processes to inventory management. Because they’ve helped so many of their businesses make the switch, Topp and his team have become well-versed in the migration process. They conduct a comprehensive debrief following each rollout, to fine-tune the process and get input from employees. One thing is clear at TASi—the switch to Epicor Kinetic has been a game-changer, and they will continue to move forward, at a pace that suits their timeline for expansion and growth.
“There are tremendous benefits to a SaaS model,” Topp says. “Uppermost are continuous updates to the latest and greatest functionality—that’s fantastic. Epicor also offers us flexibility; we do not have to be the pioneer, and we can choose to stay on a version for longer if needed.”
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In business as in life, persistence brings results. When Rick Homola, CFO of Hamlin Building Center, realized in 2018 that his existing legacy, on-premises ERP system was at its limit, he was prepared to make a change right away. Others were not quite as ready to jump onboard, but by 2021 he successfully made his case for migrating to Epicor BisTrack deployed in the cloud.
As a locally-business with two full-service lumberyards and a close relationship with area contractors and homeowners, Hamlin Building Center needed a modern ERP environment to increase customer visibility and support integrations with other applications. They needed to transform everyday activities like reconciling invoices with payments, without the headaches of third-party add-ons and awkward workarounds.
After a careful rollout done intentionally during their slower season, Hamlin Building Center saw striking results with BisTrack. From weekly order replenishment cut down from hours to minutes, to purchasing moved from several employees to one individual with ownership of the entire process, the business has reached new levels of efficiency and productivity.
“The time saved by using BisTrack allows our valued employees to contribute to the business in new ways,” Homola says. “And we’ve improved margins in large-project sales by 1.08%, an area where margins are very tight, showing the power of bringing automation and data-driven decision-making to the business.”
As the above examples demonstrate, transformation takes hard work, conviction, and collaborative effort—but the results are real. At Epicor, we’re here to help you find the right solutions to make every day easier for your business, your workforce, and your customers.
