The Miami Corporation queues up Cutwater BI, report writer

By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff November 14, 2008

The Miami Corporation , a leading national supplier of automotive, contract and marine upholstery and trim products for both OEM and aftermarket companies, is using Cutwater Business Intelligence (BI) solutions preconfigured for the company’s transaction system, Activant Prophet 21.“Our goal is to be the dominant provider of upholstery and trim products to the automotive, contract, and marine trades east of the Mississippi river,” says Dan Niehaus, VP, The Miami Corporation. “To do this, we must provide superior service while establishing a clear cost advantage for our customers.”The Miami Corporation has increased sales and support staff as well as its product offering to ensure that as the company grows, customer service improves. Being able to report on real-time information is critical to making sure corporate metrics are being met or exceeded across operations and customer service.“Cutwater BI allows any one of us to turn to our data—in real time—to get an answer to a question,” explains Niehaus. “We’re looking at our data in ways that help us see trends we may not have picked up with a standard report writer.”The Miami Corporation delivers more than 25,000 products from leading manufacturers, and has initiated a “dropship” program that allows the company to speed delivery to a widening customer base.While many software implementations can take days or even weeks and can require hours of training, Cutwater BI software can be installed in a matter of hours and requires very little training. The Miami Corporation’s users are able to query data and save reports from their desktop, without having to learn a cumbersome report writer or complex software interface. Users select desired data from preconfigured report areas and view results in a spreadsheet format. Cutwater software is entirely Microsoft-based and integrated with Microsoft Excel.“By definition, preconfigured software means no work for the client to install,” says Jim Heatherington, managing director of Cutwater. “But the real advantage exists when the average business user turns to the product without hesitation and finds it convenient to use. This separates Cutwater BI from most other report writers.”