Cogan Wire & Metal gets it done

When Cogan Wire and Metal Products needed to get closer to its 300 dealers across North America, each of which has multiple salesmen, it knew yesterday's solutions wouldn't cut it.

"The materials handling industry is not known for being very high-tech," says Mehdi Serrar, Cogan's Senior System Administrator. "We knew that we had to separate ourselves from our competitors by being cutting edge, by finding ways to service our dealers better and faster."

The company, which designs and manufactures mezzanines, security guardrails, wire mesh partitions, and condominium lockers, doesn't make commodity products.

"We custom-make everything we sell, including our mezzanines" says Serrar. "We don't do standardized orders."

Instead, they go through a multi-stage process that includes receiving the customer's request for quote (RFQ), building the estimate, reviewing the plans with the customer, revising the plans and finally engineering the product. This back-and-forth process often takes a few weeks. Although this is historically how mezzanines have been designed and built, it was completely unacceptable to the company. "Every time the plans for mezzanines went from us to the dealer, then to the customer and back, there was an opportunity for misunderstanding," says Serrar. "It took too long, and there were too many opportunities for errors."

So Cogan turned to Microsoft and a combination of Office Live Meeting and the RoundTable video conferencing device to bring dealers into the process, reduce runaround and slice a two-week process down to less than a day.

"By moving the process into Live Meeting, we now schedule one meeting for everyone," says Serrar. "We have the customer, our account manager and one of our engineers all looking at the same drawings and plans, all at the same time. They can make as many changes as they want without having to go back and forth - or wait. They can approve it right there, and then it goes to production. We've reduced two weeks of work to only one meeting per project."

Cogan's solution, which uses Office Live Communicator as a collaboration platform, leverages Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging and a third party gateway that preserves its investment in its Nortel telephony infrastructure. The company worked closely with Microsoft resources in both Canada and the U.S. to ensure the parts all came together - and met defined business goals.

The resulting accelerated order management process doesn't just improve cash flow, improve precision and reduce acquisition and administrative costs. It also gives the company, which is based in Terrebonne, Quebec, just north of Montreal, a competitive edge in its industry.

"We're not the most expensive company out there, but we're not the cheapest either," says Serrar. "We sell on our quality and our service, and having this kind of flexibility lets us improve both."

The bottom line: Greater trust from customers as well as dealers.

"When our customers see that we have this technology that allows them to interact directly with our engineers and show them exactly what they're looking for in mezzanines, it helps them feel more confident about our product and about our company," says Serrar. "It also builds their confidence in how we will serve them before and after the sale."

This capability also reinforces the dealer relationship, critical to Cogan because its dealers are independent. Improving the company's relationship with them - and giving them next-generation tools to grow their own business - is key to ensuring they don't bolt to the competition.

Irwin Lazar says this experience is a perfect example of the power of unified communications.

"Anywhere you can eliminate human latency, you can make a business case for UC," says the Principal Research Analyst and Program Director for Nemertes Research. "These technologies let companies in any sector get customer-facing activities done faster without necessarily requiring additional staff or resources. This kind of effectiveness drives operational efficiencies and, of course, increased sales."

Using Microsoft's next-generation communication tools allows Cogan to get more face time with its dealers than ever before. Before implementing Live Meeting, dealers from across North America attended meetings at the company's headquarters every six months. It was an expensive, cumbersome process that did little to build effective working relationships.

"When you see someone a couple of times a year, you have to review six months of sales'" says Serrar. "But by holding monthly meetings online, it allows you to work more closely with them and build a stronger working relationship."

Stronger relationships allow account managers to catch small issues before they become large - and damaging.

"If a dealer was upset with our service, it used to take six months to realize we weren't getting any orders from that dealer," says Serrar. "Now, you can see right away when there are potential problems. And you can act immediately."

The result? Higher dealer loyalty, which Serrar says will drive higher revenues and reduced turnover. Cogan is saving $300,000 annually in reduced travel costs. But that's only the beginning: The company has inspired dealers in the process.

"We've already received a lot of feedback from them," says Serrar. "They appreciate the greater level of service, especially when it makes it easier for them to connect with customers. Many of them say, 'Why would we want to work with anyone else?'"

To ensure the answer is always the right one, Cogan rolled out a Web application that allows near-real-time turnaround of quotes for the company's mezzanines.

Without the tool, it used to take between two and four days to build a quote. The new system allows dealers to enter the specifications into the software and returns the results in seconds.

"It's like a live engineer that works 24/7. Our dealers often ask why they'd want to work with anyone else," says Serrar, adding that a number of dealers who had been working with competitors have switched to Cogan because of its service levels.

Cogan saved an additional $100,000 by using its enhanced videoconferencing capability to train its dealers on the new software.

The benefits are felt inside the company as well. Sales people take their entire office with them when they hit the road.

"Wherever they are, they make and receive calls as if they're right here in Montreal," says Serrar. "Sales people make a lot of calls, which can get expensive when they use their cell phones. We know we're saving a substantial amount of money on this alone - and they get the added benefit of having their office, including all their documents, phone, instant messaging and video conferencing tools, with them. It's great for their productivity."

Making the tools easy for the average worker to use has been key to unlocking these productivity benefits, says Bryan Rusche, Microsoft Canada's Senior Product Manager for Unified Communications.

"This is not like video conferencing from the old days where you had to book or rent a room and then arrange to have IT help you set up the session," says Rusche. "We're at a stage now where every type of conferencing - audio, video and Web - is easy for the user to set up and use. The tools provide right-click functionality that's intuitive and familiar to them and doesn't require a lot of training."

Serrar says this has significant benefits for Cogan's 100 head office employees, many of whom have not grown up using today's advanced messaging technologies.

"One of the biggest challenges of any software is to get the users to adopt the product and start using it regularly," he says. "One huge benefit from Microsoft is it is so easy to use. The communications software looks and works exactly like the Microsoft Office interface. Because everyone is used to Word, Excel and Outlook, they've adapted very quickly to these tools, too."

Getting to that point, says Rusche, doesn't have to be difficult.

"The best place to start is by looking at where you already have an investment." He says. "At Microsoft, we're very cognizant of what it takes to develop a unified communications strategy. We know customers want the ability to leverage existing investments. And not just in telephony equipment, but also in their office suite of applications.

"The vast majority of customers already have an Exchange Server, Microsoft Office Suite and a PBX. Microsoft offers a compelling value proposition because customers don't often realize they're 90% of the way there already."

At the end of the day, Cogan Wire and Metal Products has implemented next-generation communication tools that make life easier for its employees, dealers and customers.

"Our sales people are happier because they get to serve their customers better, and make more sales and commission," says Serrar. "We haven't had one single person in the entire company who was unhappy."