The System That Almost Got Away - (sourcing strategies)

Paul Orr almost overlooked a product that has ultimately driven $300,000 in annual revenue at auto parts manufacturer Diemolding Corp.

Orr, director of IT at the privately held firm in Canastota, N.Y., was attending a user conference for his enterprise resource planning system from Exact Software. He skipped out on a session about Exact's new customer relationship management product because he couldn't imagine using it. "I thought that the product would work great if you have salespeople scattered around the country," Orr says. "We're a family-owned company with 300 employees, and all our salespeople are in shouting distance."

But by leaving halfway through the session, Orr missed hearing about some functions of the e-Synergy application that he's sought for almost a decade. He learned about them only because one of his consultants called him afterward to follow up. (Joe Paris, president of XONITEK Systems Corp., a Binghamton, N.Y., consulting firm, says Orr missed the part of the presentation that focused on content management.)

Now in use for almost four years, e-Synergy helps Diemolding manage its workflow, from orders, quotes and inventory to all correspondence with customers. And the added revenue? That comes from a feature in the system that alerts engineers about upcoming deadlines to respond to quotes. "The more quotes engineers can respond to, the more business we've had," Orr says.

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