Randy Adler

"I was never on the current version of the program and I had to change the code to the most current version of the SBT program," recalled KCAV's systems manager, Randy Adler. Working on a software version that lagged three years behind the most current version of the manufacturer, it was impossible for Adler to support operations under those circumstances. Adler eventually upgraded SBT to the Windows version. "I could see all the flaws in the product and they had no way to correct them," said Adler. "I made a $40,000 mistake when I went to the Windows package."

Unable to keep up with order entry, hundreds of suppliers and thousands of SKUs, Adler started looking for a combination of e-commerce solutions and accounting capabilities in one package.

Before purchasing Everest E-Commerce Standard Edition, Adler evaluated 24 different software packages. "The only integrated packages that were even remotely competitive to Everest at that time were Great Plains and Navision," noted Adler. But when Adler weighed the costs of Navision and Great Plains and then factored-in the cost of support, his choice was clear. "The support fees were going to bury us," said Adler.
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"The ability to bring in a new employee and get him or her up and running on the software is much easier with Everest than with the other products I evaluated," Adler said. Everest facilitates the ease of change to the new system from an employee-training standpoint.

With a $2,500 average daily transaction and a lot of credit card transactions, the company follows a step-by-step method to get the order processed. If a customer's address on file does not match with the credit card company, the system prompts an AVS failure. "The ICVERIFY functionality allows us to divide the responsibility in terms of allowing staff to deal with credit card based transactions, spreading that authority over more people helps us save up to 3 weeks," Adler said.

With the ability to select items to be drop-shipped while creating a sales order in Everest, KCAV reduces inventory costs by getting the vendors to ship items directly to customers. "Being able to copy a sales order into a purchase order – that's a great feature. It's so helpful it has saved us to from re-keying information across various departments," Adler said.

Everest has also helped improve staff efficiencies and productivity. "It allows us to share information across our whole business," observed Adler. "If a customer is buying a product at a certain price, everybody can see that. Prior to Everest, KCAV had three people in the accounting department. Now the company has cut the head count to two, while maintaining the same operations. "It has allowed us to do more business with fewer people," Adler said.
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Since implementing Everest, Adler has been able to spend more of his own time to grow the business. "For the first time since 2001, I have more time to sell, which is encouraging," Adler reflected. "My old software program took 45 minutes to reconcile data at the end of each day. With Everest, I am out the door in less than three minutes at the end of the day. It's beautiful."

According to Adler, working on Everest now helps in the performance analysis of sales personnel and it has also assisted them in increasing their profit margins. "Everest allows me to mine and display real-time information in various ways for people to improve their productivity," Adler concluded.

"I was never on the current version of the program and I had to change the code to the most current version of the SBT program," recalled KCAV's systems manager, Randy Adler.Working on a software version that lagged three years behind the most current version of the manufacturer, it was impossible for Adler to support operations under those circumstances.Adler eventually upgraded SBT to the Windows version."I could see all the flaws in the product and they had no way to correct them," said Adler."I made a $40,000 mistake when I went to the Windows package."

Unable to keep up with order entry, hundreds of suppliers and thousands of SKUs, Adler started looking for a combination of e-commerce and accounting capabilities in one package.Before purchasing Everest

E-Commerce Standard Edition, Adler evaluated 24 different software packages."The only integrated packages that were even remotely competitive to Everest at that time were Great Plains and Navision," noted Adler.But when Adler weighed the costs of Navision and Great Plains and then factored-in the cost of support, his choice was clear."The support fees were going to bury us," said Adler.
...
"The ability to bring in a new employee and get him or her up and running on the software is much easier with Everest than with the other products I evaluated," Adler said.Everest facilitates the ease of change to the new system from an employee-training standpoint.

With a $2,500 average daily transaction and a lot of credit card transactions, the company follows a step-by-step method to get the order processed.If a customer's address on file does not match with the credit card company, the system prompts an AVS failure."The ICVERIFY functionality allows us to divide the responsibility in terms of allowing staff to deal with credit card based transactions, spreading that authority over more people helps us save up to 3 weeks," Adler said.

With the ability to select items to be drop-shipped while creating a sales order in Everest, KCAV reduces inventory costs by getting the vendors to ship items directly to customers."Being able to copy a sales order into a purchase order - that's a great feature.It's so helpful it has saved us to from re-keying information across various departments," Adler said.

Everest has also helped improve staff efficiencies and productivity."It allows us to share information across our whole business," observed Adler."If a customer is buying a product at a certain price, everybody can see that."Prior to Everest, KCAV had three people in the accounting department.Now the company has cut the head count to two, while maintaining the same operations."It has allowed us to do more business with fewer people," Adler said.
...
Since implementing Everest, Adler has been able to spend more of his own time to grow the business."For the first time since 2001, I have more time to sell, which is encouraging," Adler reflected."My old software program took 45 minutes to reconcile data at the end of each day.With Everest, I am out the door in less than three minutes at the end of the day.It's beautiful."

According to Adler, working on Everest now helps in the performance analysis of sales personnel and it has also assisted them in increasing their profit margins."Everest allows me to mine and display real-time information in various ways for people to improve their productivity," Adler concluded.

... ones that describe how Randy Adler, president of Kansas City Audio-Video, felt after running into problems with the IT consultant for his previous CRM package. ...

"I was never on the current version of the program and I had to change the code to the most current version of the SBT program," recalled KCAV's systems manager, Randy Adler. Working on a software version that lagged three years behind the most current version of the manufacturer, it was impossible for Adler to support operations under those circumstances. Adler eventually upgraded SBT to the Windows version. "I could see all the flaws in the product and they had no way to correct them," said Adler. "I made a $40,000 mistake when I went to the Windows package."

Unable to keep up with order entry, hundreds of suppliers and thousands of SKUs, Adler started looking for a combination of e-commerce and accounting capabilities in one package. Before purchasing Everest

E-Commerce Standard Edition, Adler evaluated 24 different software packages. "The only integrated packages that were even remotely competitive to Everest at that time were Great Plains and Navision," noted Adler. But when Adler weighed the costs of Navision and Great Plains and then factored-in the cost of support, his choice was clear. "The support fees were going to bury us," said Adler.
...
"The ability to bring in a new employee and get him or her up and running on the software is much easier with Everest than with the other products I evaluated," Adler said. Everest facilitates the ease of change to the new system from an employee-training standpoint.

With a $2,500 average daily transaction and a lot of credit card transactions, the company follows a step-by-step method to get the order processed. If a customer's address on file does not match with the credit card company, the system prompts an AVS failure. "The ICVERIFY functionality allows us to divide the responsibility in terms of allowing staff to deal with credit card based transactions, spreading that authority over more people helps us save up to 3 weeks," Adler said.

With the ability to select items to be drop-shipped while creating a sales order in Everest, KCAV reduces inventory costs by getting the vendors to ship items directly to customers. "Being able to copy a sales order into a purchase order – that's a great feature. It's so helpful it has saved us to from re-keying information across various departments," Adler said.

Everest has also helped improve staff efficiencies and productivity. "It allows us to share information across our whole business," observed Adler. "If a customer is buying a product at a certain price, everybody can see that. Prior to Everest, KCAV had three people in the accounting department. Now the company has cut the head count to two, while maintaining the same operations. "It has allowed us to do more business with fewer people," Adler said.
...
Since implementing Everest, Adler has been able to spend more of his own time to grow the business. "For the first time since 2001, I have more time to sell, which is encouraging," Adler reflected. "My old software program took 45 minutes to reconcile data at the end of each day. With Everest, I am out the door in less than three minutes at the end of the day. It's beautiful."

According to Adler, working on Everest now helps in the performance analysis of sales personnel and it has also assisted them in increasing their profit margins. "Everest allows me to mine and display real-time information in various ways for people to improve their productivity," Adler concluded.

"I was never on the current version of the program and I had to change the code to the most current version of the SBT program," recalled KCAV's systems manager, Randy Adler.Working on a software version that lagged three years behind the most current version of the manufacturer, it was impossible for Adler to support operations under those circumstances.Adler eventually upgraded SBT to the Windows version."I could see all the flaws in the product and they had no way to correct them," said Adler."I made a $40,000 mistake when I went to the Windows package."

Unable to keep up with order entry, hundreds of suppliers and thousands of SKUs, Adler started looking for a combination of e-commerce and accounting capabilities in one package.Before purchasing Everest

E-Commerce Standard Edition, Adler evaluated 24 different software packages."The only integrated packages that were even remotely competitive to Everest at that time were Great Plains and Navision," noted Adler.But when Adler weighed the costs of Navision and Great Plains and then factored-in the cost of support, his choice was clear."The support fees were going to bury us," said Adler.
...
"The ability to bring in a new employee and get him or her up and running on the software is much easier with Everest than with the other products I evaluated," Adler said.Everest facilitates the ease of change to the new system from an employee-training standpoint.

With a $2,500 average daily transaction and a lot of credit card transactions, the company follows a step-by-step method to get the order processed.If a customer's address on file does not match with the credit card company, the system prompts an AVS failure."The ICVERIFY functionality allows us to divide the responsibility in terms of allowing staff to deal with credit card based transactions, spreading that authority over more people helps us save up to 3 weeks," Adler said.

With the ability to select items to be drop-shipped while creating a sales order in Everest, KCAV reduces inventory costs by getting the vendors to ship items directly to customers."Being able to copy a sales order into a purchase order - that's a great feature.It's so helpful it has saved us to from re-keying information across various departments," Adler said.

Everest has also helped improve staff efficiencies and productivity."It allows us to share information across our whole business," observed Adler."If a customer is buying a product at a certain price, everybody can see that."Prior to Everest, KCAV had three people in the accounting department.Now the company has cut the head count to two, while maintaining the same operations."It has allowed us to do more business with fewer people," Adler said.
...
Since implementing Everest, Adler has been able to spend more of his own time to grow the business."For the first time since 2001, I have more time to sell, which is encouraging," Adler reflected."My old software program took 45 minutes to reconcile data at the end of each day.With Everest, I am out the door in less than three minutes at the end of the day.It's beautiful."

According to Adler, working on Everest now helps in the performance analysis of sales personnel and it has also assisted them in increasing their profit margins."Everest allows me to mine and display real-time information in various ways for people to improve their productivity," Adler concluded.

- Randy Adler Systems Manager

- Randy AdlerSystems Manager

Harsh words, but ones that describe how Randy Adler, president of Kansas City Audio-Video, felt after running into problems with the IT consultant for his previous CRM package.Kansas City Audio-Video, or KCAV, has been providing products and services to businesses, schools, houses of worship, and government agencies since 1953, when its Midwest business dealt mostly in overhead projectors and dictation equipment.Since that humble beginning, KCAV has grown into a wholesaler and retailer selling multimedia presentation and A/V resources to its original core clientele nationwide.As far back as 2001, when Adler was the company's systems manager, the company was struggling with its initial CRM purchase, SBT ACCPAC, which was customized through a value added reseller (VAR)."We bought a product that the VAR didn't understand, and completely failed to maintain," Adler recalls."The VAR was about three years behind versions relative to the manufacturer, so I was never on the current version of the program--I had to change the code to the most current version myself, and there were always bugs."Adler eventually upgraded KCAV's computers to run newer, more powerful Windows versions of the software that would support the company's expanding operations. > >
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The bad reseller experience influenced Adler when searching for a new solution."I made up my mind that I'd never work through a reseller, or anybody who didn't write their own code.If you don't understand the product, you're not going to make it work for me," Adler says.With this in mind, he proceeded to evaluate 24 different software packages for KCAV, looking for the best combination of e-commerce, accounting, and management tools for a business with hundreds of suppliers and thousands of SKUs.In the first third of 2004 Adler had narrowed down the field to three contenders: Microsoft Great Plains, Navision (part of Microsoft Business Solutions), and iCode Everest Standard Edition.All three would suit his business needs, so it came down to cost."The support fees were going to bury us if we went with Navision or Great Plains," Adler says.
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Hess took Adler and his staff through a comprehensive business process review, outlining how iCode was there to do more than just install software.
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This is a smaller number than KCAV used to support: "The fundamental reason for building up our computer resources was to grow the business without growing the staff," Adler says.
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"The ability to bring in a new employee and get him or her up and running on the software is much easier with Everest than with the other products I evaluated," Adler says.According to Dosky, KCAV's purchasing group also gained real insight into sales and inventory.But he thinks the real win was in e-commerce."Everest gave them the power to conduct sales on the floor, on the phone, and on the Web, without losing track of inventory flow."Everest reduces inventory costs by letting sales agents create drop-ship orders so vendors ship items straight to the customers.KCAV has $2,500 in average daily transactions, much of it through credit cards, so any problem with processing will gum up the company's step-by-step order verification process.Everest allows KCAV to distribute the workload when resolving inconsistencies in orders."Spreading that authority over more people helps us save up to three weeks," Adler says.Staff efficiency and productivity has improved."[Everest] allows us to share information across our whole business," Adler says."If a customer is buying a product at a certain price, everybody can see that."The system also eliminates rekeying of data, and processes daily changes much faster."My old software program took 45 minutes to reconcile data at the end of each day," Adler says.

"With Everest, I am out the door in less than three minutes at the end of the day.It's beautiful."Business has continued to pick up for KCAV, and in March 2005 the company completed an upgrade to Everest E-Commerce Advanced.The new product uses a DQL database, which has resulted in better stability for the KCAV installation.Adler says, simply, "No bugs."