C.A. Curtze, leading distributors of wholesale food and merchandise, used Acucorp solutions to develop two robust, high performance order-entry applications: Sales Pro 2000 for their sales force, and Order Pro 2000 to allow customers direct order access. The initial application, Sales Pro 2000, was so successful that in January 1999 the development effort was incorporated under the name of SalesPro Technologies in order to sell the new order-entry system to the public. In addition to affiliates C.A. Curtze and Northern Haserot, SalesPro Technologies has customers in the food distribution and health care industries, and the demand is growing. When it was time to Web-enable their applications, it was no surprise that SalesPro Technologies turned to Acucorp's e-business solutions.

Building on Past Success

When the provider of C.A. Curtze's internal order-entry system discontinued its software business, Anthony Darden, now Vice President of SalesPro Technologies, started developing a proprietary order-entry software package. The resulting applications, Sales Pro 2000 and Order Pro 2000, have emerged as two of the most reliable, automated remote order-entry systems available. SalesPro Technologies decided their next step should be implementing an e-business solution from Acucorp.

AcuConnect and Acucorp's Web Plug-in enabled Darden to develop a client/server application environment that allows customers from all over the globe to use Order Pro 2000 to order food and goods directly from the distributor via the Internet. Customers visit the distributor's Web site and click the order-entry link, and a COBOL object (Order Pro 2000) begins to run inside the browser. The logic supporting this system is all COBOL.

Making e-Business Easy

The ability to make applications and data available worldwide can reduce costs, decrease the sales cycle, and increase customer convenience and satisfaction. With Order Pro 2000, the customer site receives and places orders within a Web browser on a stand-alone system. The distributor's live data is stored on a server protected by a firewall. A snapshot of this data is taken at regular intervals and posted to a secure Web server for customer access. Orders from the customer go directly to the distributor to be processed and added to the live data files. This system keeps the distributor's data secure and allows thousands of orders to be processed at once, improving transaction speed enormously.

Each time a customer logs in to Order Pro 2000, another Acucorp feature, the Web Browser control, displays a banner advertisement that is refreshed every twenty seconds. SalesPro Technologies is able to tailor banner advertising to specific clients. "That Web Browser control is fascinating!" Darden exclaims. SalesPro Technologies sells banner advertising space to large manufacturers. When a customer logs in to the system using the Web Plug-in, the server recognizes who is logged on and sends out the appropriate advertising for the client. According to Darden, this allows them to "bring extra money into the company and create the exposure manufacturers are looking for. The more exposure we have through installation and use, the more money we can obtain."

Partnerships Pave the Road to the Future

Partnerships with other companies have helped to make SalesPro Technologies what it is today. In addition to the invaluable contributions of SalesPro's affiliates, C.A. Curtze and Northern Haserot, customers and other companies have shaped their success. They base future versions of their order-entry systems on customer input. "It's similar to your annual Acucorp Developers' Conference, where you seek customer input," says Darden, "What goes in future versions is what the customers tell us to put in. It only makes sense."

For example, Integrated Food Services, which serves members of AmeriNet (the fourth largest health care buying group in the United States) and several other independent hospital, and nursing homes, aided in the design of the interface. They reviewed several Web-based order-entry systems and selected Order Pro 2000 for speed and features. SalesPro Technologies used Acucorp's development toolkit to create a fast, stable system and tailor it to their needs in a short time. Darden explains, "It was this partnership that propelled our development even further." They began preparing for an initial deployment of 2000 copies of the product.

When U.S. Chemicals developed the interactive software "A Walk Through Your Kitchen," Order Pro 2000 was integrated into the program so users can point and click their way through the tour, while placing and transmitting orders for featured products.

Darden also points out that hundreds of C.A. Curtze customers will be using Order Pro over the Internet. Darden says, "C.A. Curtze currently uses our sales order-entry system, Sales Pro 2000. The nice thing about it is that both systems work together on the server level, making it a true, one-stop shop for order-entry in the sales industry: inside sales, outside sales, customer sales, all incorporating the Internet." Sales representatives are already reporting a one to two-hour time savings per day due in part to the features of the order-entry system and the improved accuracy of orders.

The Next Stop

Now that Order Pro 2000 is Web-enabled, Darden is looking forward to upcoming releases of Acucorp Solutions so he can optimize Sales Pro 2000 for wireless Internet connections and a mobile sales force. With help from Acucorp Solutions, the future of SalesPro Technologies is looking bright!