Case Studies

Web Improves Everyday Business Process

Anixter's Online Database Quadruples Credit Department Productivity
Anixter Inc. is the world's leading distributor of data communication products and electrical wire and cable. An online database that provides easy access to invoices has helped Anixter's credit administrators quadruple their productivity. In the past, these administrators spent a considerable amount of time retrieving and printing invoices in response to customer requests. To address this problem, the company contracted with IHS Enterprise Solutions, Englewood, Colorado, to convert their mainframe print spool files to a CD-ROM every month that could quickly be searched to find, edit and print the invoice. This saved a large amount of time, but the credit specialists still had to manually process invoices created since the last CD-ROM was produced. This issue was addressed by increasing the frequency to daily processing and putting the information onto a special Web site where it can be accessed by the credit administrators using a browser. "The initial move to the CD-ROM database saved so much time that our credit specialists were able to double their collection responsibility, measured in dollars of receivables, while moving to the online database helped them double the receivables each one could handle again," said Geoff Last, Director of Credit for Anixter. "Recently, we have gone even one step further by giving our larger customers the ability to access their own invoices over the Web."

Anixter Inc. adds value to its distribution process by providing its customers access to; the largest technical sales force in the industry; more than 65,000 products and $650 million in inventory; 75 warehouses with more than 3.5 million square feet of space; and locations in 175 cities in 41 countries. Founded in 1957 and headquartered near Chicago, the company now employs more than 5,000 people in 180 cities throughout the world. Anixter has had the capability to test products in its own lab environment since 1995. By testing its inventory at the multimillion-dollar Anixter Levels Lab, the company can tell its customers not only whether an access method will run, but also how well it will run. In 1997, Anixter introduced Levels '97, which sought to sort out cable manufacturers' claims of performance beyond Category 5. The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) in Arlington, VA adopted the original Levels program, with few modifications, as the Category system.

Problems obtaining copies
Anixter issues more than 8,000 invoices every day. In many cases, users in the field call in the order to the company prior to taking care of the necessary paperwork. At this point, they are unable to provide a purchase order number and other pertinent information that may be required by their company's accounts payable department. When the invoice is received, it can't be processed and the customer may call Anixter to request an updated copy. Shortly thereafter, the credit specialists follow up on the invoice and obtain the information they need to finalize the invoice from the customer. Then, in most cases, they have to issue a corrected invoice to the accounts payable department. In the past, just locating the original invoice was a difficult task. If an invoice was less than three months old, the credit specialist could go to a mainframe operator and request a reprint during nightly batch processing. Another alternative was to go into the reporting system from a terminal and reprint the invoice on a local printer. Either approach took time because of the difficulty finding an individual invoice without a text search capability among the thousands that were issued for a particular day. Another problem was the mainframe didn't provide a facility for correcting the invoice so it was often necessary to retype it from scratch.

Ira Wiznitzer, Manager of Information Access for Anixter, was originally charged with the task of streamlining the process of accessing and editing the invoices. "We talked to a number of different companies that offered ideas on how to solve our problem," he said. "IHS impressed us because of their strong capabilities in user interface design and data conversion as well as the the capabilities they have to handle the entire task on an outsourcing basis while meeting our tight time requirements." Phillip Wolfe, Team Leader for IHS, said that the company began by developing a method for converting the mainframe print spool files to the Dataware CD-ANSWER format, which is well suited for use in a CD-ROM or online database. "Next, we created a user interface that overlaps Anixter's forms on top of the raw data so that the screen display is nearly identical to the printed invoice," Wolfe said. "We used business rules provided by Anixter to create the interface. For example, it selects the proper invoice form based after reading the Anixter division and the customer's country from the database. We gave the users the ability to search a wide range of fields, including invoice number, customer number, purchase order number and RMA number so they can find the one they need in a few seconds. Finally, we provided the ability to edit the invoice and print a new copy from the credit administrator's personal computer. The CD-ROMs that were used originally stored up to 1 million invoices, which is six months' worth of data."

First Version Doubled Productivity
The CD-ROMs made the credit administrators' job much easier, reducing the time needed to produce copies and making it possible to focus on customer interaction. The result was on average, that each administrator was able to handle twice the dollar volume of customer receivables. But the success of this system spurred its replacement by an even more efficient method. The credit administrators were so happy about being able to search for and print the invoices from the CD-ROM that they became dissatisfied with the fact that up to six weeks of the most recent invoices were not available on CD-ROM and had to be retrieved by the earlier, more time-consuming methods. Anixter went back to IHS Enterprise Solutions and asked them for suggestions. First of all, the company increased the frequency they generated the CDs from monthly to weekly. But when the credit specialists began asking for daily copies, IHS recommended moving the application to the Web.

The new process involves an electronic feed each night of all the invoices produced that day from Anixter to IHS. As soon as they receive the invoices, IHS staff begins the process of converting them to the database. By the next morning, the invoices are available on a Web site hosted by IHS for easy access by the representatives. Because the credit representatives like the user interface of the CD so much, the Web interface is nearly the same. "The users were happy with the CDs but having the information available the next day on their browser really bowled them over," Wiznitzer said. "The fact that IHS is able to host the Web site and provide user support means that our IT department doesn't even need to get involved, which greatly reduces our costs. Over time, IHS has demonstrated their ability to consistently and reliably process the information overnight and maintain reliable service on their Web site."

Doubling productivity again
"The advent of the online version of this application, which we called CIS for Centralized Invoice Storage, has allowed our credit administrators to double their productivity again over the CD version," Wiznitzer continued. "This is because they have eliminated the need to process recent invoices that in the past had not yet been archived because of the time lag involved in producing the CD. Another advantage of the online version is that it stores all invoices that have been created since the start of the project, compared to just six months with the CDs. One more major improvement is that the CIS has been integrated with our desktop technologies, including fax and email. The rep can now search for an invoice, make any necessary corrections, and send it directly to the customer without leaving his or her desk in a matter of minutes."

"This application has greatly improved the efficiency of our credit department," Last concluded. "Rather than wasting their time trying to locate documents, our credit administrators can focus on helping our customers cut through red tape to process the invoices. Recently, we have made another improvement by giving our larger customers a password to the online database while restricting them to viewing only their own invoices. This has provided further productivity improvements and made it possible in many cases for our customers to streamline the task of processing our invoices, which helps us get paid faster. This application, in my opinion, is an excellent example of how the Web can be used to improve everyday business processes."

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