A Growing Number of Companies Move to Guided Selling and Configuration Software in 2007
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Companies in a Wide Range of Industries Select and Deploy TDCI's BuyDesign®
February 7, 2008 - Columbus, Ohio. TDCI, Inc. (TDCI), the leading provider of configurator-based software solutions, announced today that the company added 23 new customers for TDCI's BuyDesign Guided Selling and Configuration software in 2007. Companies selecting and deploying BuyDesign in 2007 were manufacturers in a wide range of industries: from building products such as windows, commercial and residential doors, kitchen cabinets, partitions, and pre-built staircases; to custom furniture, recreational boats and yachts, custom vans, HVAC equipment, pumps, imprinted apparel, and various types of equipment and machinery.
BuyDesign is a comprehensive guided selling and configuration solution developed to streamline the sales process for customized products. BuyDesign helps companies that manufacture products with a wide range of features, options, and dimensions increase sales by becoming 'easy to do business with' while at the same time helping them improve profitability by reducing order processing time, cost, and errors.
"We're seeing a growing number of companies across many different industries adopting the concept of product configurator-based guided selling," said TDCI President Dan DeMuth. "With today's convergence of advanced software and Internet technologies, there are many different ways to leverage guided selling, from initial end-customer interest creation, to generation of intelligent design blocks for CAD designers, to guided product selection, configuration, and quoting for sales people. The same core technology can also be used to automate generation of configuration-specific drawings, documents, and manufacturing information. And as manufacturers add more and more product variety, these types of capabilities are becoming more and more important."
TDCI's BuyDesign solution suite includes configurator-based applications for direct sales quoting and ordering, multi-level dealer/distributor quoting and ordering, consumer-oriented website applications, configurable product catalogs for use by professional designers and architects within CAD applications, and more. BuyDesign solutions can provide dynamic 2D, 3D, or fully render photos of configured products, and most BuyDesign applications can be implemented online via the web, on distributed laptops and desktop PCs, in workgroups, or in any combination - all centrally managed and synchronized via the Internet. Examples of the variety of ways companies are using BuyDesign guided selling and configuration software include:
Kolbe & Kolbe Millworks, a leading manufacturer of high quality residential windows and patio doors is using BuyDesign Channel Sales to provide over 1600 sales people within their dealer network with fast, easy quoting and ordering of the company's highly customizable products.
Therma-Tru Doors, the nation's leading manufacturer of entry door systems, is using BuyDesign Build-Your-Own to enable homeowners to select, customize, and visualize various Therma-Tru door systems in a home much like their own, then find a local dealer who will use BuyDesign Channel Sales to quote and order their design.
Merillat, one of North America's largest kitchen and bathroom cabinet manufacturers, is using BuyDesign Spec-In to deliver a product catalog that enables designers to easily select and insert Merillat cabinets directly into their AutoCAD(TM) designs.
Four-Winns, one of America's most popular brands of recreational boats, is using BuyDesign Configurator to configure boat features, options, and colors as part of the order entry process within their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
The Gorman-Rupp Company, a leading manufacturer of pumps and pumping systems, is using BuyDesign to provide web-based selection and ordering of pumps and repair parts to the company's 1000+ world-wide distributors.
TDCI is currently working with customers to develop additional configurator-based solutions ranging from automated generation of product variant data for new product introductions, to collaborative design, quoting, and ordering of complex equipment among engineers, building contractors, manufacturers' reps, and the manufacturer.
"There's no question the world is continuing to move down the road to mass customization in just about all types of products. That's definitely changing the way companies do business, and therefore changing the types of tools they need. If TDCI's growth is any indication, we're going to be seeing even more companies adopt product configuration technology and configurator-based applications such as guided selling in order to manage both the complexity and opportunity of mass customization," summarized DeMuth.
About TDCI and BuyDesign
TDCI is an enterprise solution provider that specializes in helping manufacturers and their distributors streamline the buying process for customized products. TDCI's BuyDesign® software is a comprehensive guided selling and configuration solution developed to help companies increase sales by becoming 'easy to do business with' while improving profitability by reducing order processing time, cost, and errors. BuyDesign provides modular components for guided product selection and configuration, product visualization, quoting and ordering, drawing generation, and status inquiry. It also includes applications for front-end specification capture from within popular design products such as AutoCAD and others.
For more information, visit www.tdci.com.
Contact: Sharon Binkley
sbinkley@tdci.com
614.781.2325 x171
