Since launching Prima into the US market, we have had the pleasure of helping businesses make the move from their dated, legacy systems to our efficient, cloud-based solution. One of the companies that we have worked with is JD Distributors Inc, a family-owned enterprise with more than 20 years of experience in distribution.
2020 has been a rather challenging year for everyone and the effects of COVID-19 have forced businesses to shift operations online. This digital shift is exactly what is needed for companies like JD Distributors to adjust on the fly and fine-tune their daily operations to keep up with ever evolving trends.
Recently, Maria Johnson, Business Development Manager at Prima Edge, caught up with Jimmy Slaughter, Director of Sales, and Logan Flood, Financial Officer, to find out about their journey with Prima so far.
Check-out below why JD Distributors chose Prima as their solution provider, the transition to a new system across their two locations during the challenging pandemic period and the benefits that the switch to Prima, a modern cloud-based ERP, has brought to their business:
MJ: What was your business process like before you switched to Prima?
JS: Our online presence was outdated and not tied to our AS400 system. Our sales team struggled to maintain a remote connection with AS400 preventing them from entering orders. No supplier catalogs could be uploaded to AS400 and no EDI purchasing was possible. A great deal of business process tasks were performed manually before Prima.
LF: Outdated and a very manual process.
MJ: What problem(s) were you trying to solve with our platform?
JS: We wanted to increase efficiency to allow for continued sales growth with our existing number of inside support staff. Prima allows our sales team to efficiently enter their customer orders. This has significantly reduced order entry errors. Once we finish setting up our new website, we expect customers to order online a great deal which should reduce the number of the phone calls and emails to our sales team and inside staff.
LF: Better inventory management and accounting software. We also wanted a cloud based system instead of daily manual backups to a server.
MJ: Where did you start your search?
JS: DPA and Office Partners buying groups.
MJ: What made Prima ERP stand out from other options?
JS: Other options required that we work with one company for our back-end system and another for our website. We were impressed that Prima maintains a team of developers to ensure that our website will remain current as customer expectations evolve.
LF: Talked face to face at Office Partners show and very willing to work with us and the integration of our outdated system into Prima.
MJ: What features in Prima sold you to decide to switch?
JS: We were impressed that we could work with one company for both our website and the back-end system. I appreciated the amount of information available to our sales team when entering quotations and sales orders. I was also impressed with the amount of sales/profit reporting that is available with Prima.
LF: Website and software in a package deal. The Prima team is constantly updating their programs to be up to date with technology. Prima also told us they would help change their program to fit our needs.
MJ: What made you happiest about working with our Team?
JS: Everyone at Prima, especially Ms. Andrea and Patrick, is very patient, knowledgeable, and professional. As barriers to our success appeared, everyone at Prima was willing to adapt the system to best meet our needs.
LF: Very quick to help with any problem we may have. Great customer service
MJ: How was the transition to Prima?
JS: The transition was extremely intense. I expected the transition to be very challenging since we were moving away from such an outdated AS400 system. Unfortunately, we selected the first of March as our “live” date. This caused us to transition during the most crushing business volume we have experienced in our 20-year history due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Steve, Andrea, and Patrick were extremely helpful in guiding us through the transition.
LF: Considering our outdated computer system and COVID 19 hitting the week we went live.. it was as smooth as it could have been. Andrea and Patrick were a huge help when they came in person the week before we went live. All of Prima’s team is very helpful and quick to respond.
MJ: What benefits has the switch to Prima brought?
JS: Our new website lists the quantity in stock for all our items. This seems to steer customers towards the most readily available items. Online orders are imported directly into Prima. We no longer manually enter online orders into our back-end system. Everyone in our company has access to more information. Our sales team no longer needs to call into the office to ask about the status of sales orders. We all enjoy having the ability to check the status of individual lines on sales orders, to convert quotations into sales orders, to generate quotations with images, and to email quotations directly to customers. Our previous daily ordering process from Essendent was very time-consuming. I enjoy hearing reports from our purchasing staff that the ordering process is significantly more efficient with Prima. Our sales team has appreciated that the entire Essendent catalog with our current cost is featured in Prima. We also enjoy having the ability to assign different price matrixes to customers to be more competitive against competitors in all our different territories. Our previous website only allowed for one matrix to be applied to all customers.
LF: A great new user-friendly website. An awesome relationship with a great team to help us grow in the future. A more efficient daily process for order taking and inventory management.
MJ: What is the main reason you would recommend Prima to another dealer?
JS: The website platform from Prima meets all the current expectations of end-users. Since Prima maintains a staff of developers, subscribers of Prima should not be left behind as online commerce evolves.
Thankfully, I am not involved in accounting at JD Distributors. I understand from those that take care of our accounting that their jobs are more efficient now that we are using the Prima system.
LF: Awesome team to work with and great customer service. They are quick to respond to any issue and are willing to help fit the need of your individual business.
Great choice for JD Distributors and look forward to a long relationship with Prima.
