In the future, Williams Bros. may use the ECS document imaging system to manage customer account records, as well as human resources files. In both cases, it would hope to gain better security in the event of disaster or fire, reduced storage needs, and faster access to information.
Going Online In addition to jumping into document imaging, 1996 also saw Williams Bros. taking its first steps into e-commerce with another system built from scratch. While there was much hype surrounding online sales, Williams Bros. had a somewhat contrarian view: “A lot of people wanted to focus on sales, but I didn’t see that sales on the Internet would be beneficial,” Montgomery says.
Instead, the initial focus was on a “service-based” system that let Williams Bros.’ salespeople gather information from jobsites and other locations outside the office. “As opposed to having salespeople in the store, we had a need to keep them out in the field, doing research, getting critical reports and forms, and so on.” By accessing internal systems through the Web, salespeople could answer price questions, access invoices, check product availability, and more.
Once the company got that service up and running among its salespeople, it extended the convenience to customers, who could get their own unique account and product information and even use the system to manage their purchase orders.
Williams Bros. now has its sales-people and roughly 1,200 companies using the system—called WebPro—representing 65 percent to 70 percent of its customer base, and execs describe the system as a key competitive asset. “Our competitors don’t have systems like this. A lot of times if they’re bidding against us, if they don’t have a Web site we’ve got a definite advantage,” Montgomery says. “A lot of our sales growth and our market share increase have been from that.”
Calhoun agrees on the system’s value to customers: “I’ve had several customers say one of the primary reasons they deal with us is the accessibility of records and information” through the WebPro system.
Customers have found a number of ways to use the system to their advantage since it was first made available. Some customers, for instance, use the Web system to create a list of quotes that they convert to orders; such customers are in effect using the system as their purchase order/accounting system. Smaller customers “can manage their entire business from that site as far as their lumber purchases,” Montgomery says. Larger customers, meantime, can download prices for use in their own job quoting systems.
WebPro has been updated on an ongoing basis since it was first implemented. For instance, customers recently gained the ability to view all materials purchased by job.
Future technology plans call for determining this year if, or how broadly, Williams Bros. will roll out an automated dispatching system from ECS. Already purchased for two locations, the software’s promise is to improve visibility into the status of orders for sales reps, inside salespeople, and others. It also could be used to track and maintain records for the company’s trucks, which currently number 200. “We’re trying to work out a good justification for that product to make sure what it has to output is greater than what we have to input,” Montgomery says.
Indeed, Williams Bros. is definitely willing to put technology through its paces before committing to new products and programs. “They tend to be early adopters of technology, but they don’t just do it because it’s cool,” says Cary Anderson, senior vice president of research and development at ECS. “They’re very good at putting pen to paper and figuring out how much they can save if they do this.”
Vital Statistics
Company: Williams Bros. Lumber
Year founded: 1922
Headquarters: Atlanta
Number of locations: 17
Number of employees: 1,400
2004 gross sales: $440 million
Pro sales percentage: 99.9 percent
