Epicor Cloud Accelerates Technology Innovation to Power Competitive Advantage
A couple of years ago, Denny Farrell was at a crossroads and looking to make a big career change. He accepted an IT Manager position at Builders, a provider of a wide range of building and home improvement products as well as services to homeowners and contractors. Farrell explained, “The company wanted to invest in an IT leadership role and basically offered to build a technology infrastructure to prepare the company for the future and to facilitate growth. It was an ideal job opportunity, and it has been a perfect fit.”
In his first year, Farrell spearheaded a complete revamping of Builders’ IT infrastructure, from server farms and networking, application stacks to cloud computing, cybersecurity to SOPs, and more, earning him a promotion to Director of Information Technology. “Management has a visionary view of technology as a competitive differentiator,” Farrell said. “They have given me the trust and authority to drive massive change.”
With an impressive lineup of successful projects under his belt, Farrell is creating a three-year IT strategy roadmap for Builders. The blueprint includes the goal of evolving IT from a trusted operator to a business partner and innovator while leveraging information and technology to set the company apart from the rest of the industry. One major initiative is shifting Epicor BisTrack from on-prem to the cloud. Farrell recalled, “We looked at the TCO and projected ROI of moving to the cloud, and it just made smart business sense. And the migration is facilitating our development as a business partner because my team is engaging with other parts of the business to solicit input and feedback as we work together to deploy it.”
Moving to the cloud helped offer Builders continued stability, speed, and performance, as well as increased mobility, ease of maintenance, and the promise of access to new features.
One example Farrell is especially keen on is Epicor Data Analytics (EDA), which will allow Builders’ teams to create their own views, dashboards, and reports without the need for coding skills or SQL knowledge or to rely on the four-person IT team. “EDA will be a significant empowerment boost for our sales, sales management, and operations teams,” Farrell disclosed. “It’s intuitive and simple to use. All the information they need will be readily and easily accessible at their fingertips.”
Still a family-owned company, Builders has become a multi-million-dollar business with a bright future. “Growth is a big focus, and Epicor is enabling and facilitating that growth,” Farrell elaborated. “Normally, Information Technology is a cost center and doesn’t often have the opportunity to affect the bottom line.”
But Farrell’s roadmap and the evolution of business enablement technology are creating such an opportunity.
“I’m excited about the prospects that Epicor BisTrack deployed in the cloud helped to provide and how we can leverage systems and be faster, and more efficient and productive,” Farrell imparted. “We are seeing and anticipating a large cumulative effect by making some relatively simple changes.”
The Epicor BisTrack team are visionaries too, always looking forward, actively collaborating with us and enhancing features to make the experience better for the end user. After all, it’s all about customer experience and it’s our responsibility to make our end-users’ jobs faster, easier, better so they can advance the company.
He added, “In the future, we are looking to deploy a warehouse management solution that will help our yards be more efficient and turn orders quicker. All these improvements will benefit the bottom line.”
Additionally, Farrell’s team will be freed from mundane tasks to tackle higher-value priorities, including cybersecurity and moving the rest of business operations to the cloud. He described, “Instead of being pulled in a lot of competing directions, my team will be able to focus on what they do best and to explore their own visions for IT. It’s a great talent retention benefit.”
A couple of years into his career at Builders, Farrell is proud of the accomplishments he and his team have achieved in terms of transforming the promise of technology into a reality. He is even more excited about what is yet to come.
“It’s been incredible to have the freedom to develop a vision and be able to act on it. Having management fully supporting these changes has fast-tracked us as a company,” Farrell relayed.
I’m excited about the prospects that Epicor BisTrack deployed in the cloud helped to provide and how we can leverage systems and be faster, and more efficient and productive. We are seeing and anticipating a large cumulative effect by making some relatively simple changes.
“The Epicor BisTrack team are visionaries too, always looking forward, actively collaborating with us and enhancing features to make the experience better for the end user. After all, it’s all about customer experience, and it’s our responsibility to make our end-users jobs faster, easier, better so they can advance the company.”
He emphasized, “When you are building something new, that level of partnership and trust is critical. IT evolves every day. If you don’t evolve, too, you’ll get lost. A partner like Epicor helps to enable that evolution.”