Success Stories

Mooring Tech's Ship Comes in with ChannelOnline™; Reseller Shaves 35 Minutes off the Quote-to-Invoice Process

Customers have a singular purpose when they reach Mooring Tech, Inc.: They want to purchase Panasonic Toughbooks and the accessories that make these rugged devices effective mobile gear for government contractors, field sales and service representatives, and even students.

With a staff of three, the small Atlanta, GA.-based vendor generates its multi-million-dollar revenue mostly through inside sales to customers nationwide, from prime contractors such as Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and BAE Systems, to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Whether they've called the company or have clicked through to www.buytough.com from an online marketing campaign, a partner's site or a paid search engine listing, customers and prospects who know what they want also expect a fast response from Mooring Tech.

Cutting Loose from the Deadweight of Manual Tasks

Mooring Tech founders Craig and Jeff Moore are the second generation of a family that has been navigating software and hardware sales successfully for more than 20 years. According to Craig Moore, president of Mooring Tech, he and his brother brought the Panasonic Toughbooks line into the family business, and saw growth potential in the combination of a strong product and a sales process enhanced by automation.

Moore says that the sales software in use at the time did not provide access to any data related to product distributors or inventory quantities, pricing or product availability. Each quote had to be prepared by hand, from culling basic information from each distributor's Web site, to typing in each line item and description in the formal quote. A comparative quote for two product configurations could take a half-hour or more, and thorough research to create a competitive and profitable quote took more time. And the system's limited capabilities for storing quote information meant that staff had to search through volumes of paper instead, resulting in further delay in responding to customers.

As a result, Moore says, "No news was often bad news, as prospects would get tired of waiting and pursue other vendors. When we did hear back from prospects, it was often to ask us why they still hadn't received an estimate."

The Toughbooks line would serve as a proving ground for what the brothers believed could be achieved with automation. After a new salesperson, joining the venture from a distributor, told them about CNET Channel's ChannelOnline solution, they saw success on the horizon: end-to-end sales cycle automation. Their maiden voyage with ChannelOnline produced such compelling results so quickly that within a few months, the experiment was a flourishing subsidiary of the family business and, in 2006, the brothers spun out the venture and formed their own company, with ChannelOnline in tow.

Faster Quoting and Invoicing Propel Growth

Moore estimates that revenues have more than doubled from 2005 to 2006, and he attributes the company's tremendous growth to its adoption of leading automation technologies, including ChannelOnline. In addition to access to customer, distributor and product data, Moore notes that the ability to respond to quickly is all the more important when demand can be unpredictable. He points out that prior to implementing ChannelOnline, a rush of leads inevitably would include failure to respond to some of those requests.

"Now, it's just so easy to log in, check pricing, check availability, and ultimately have more access to a wider breadth of inventory, that we've probably taken a 45-minute process to less than 10 minutes from quote to order, purchase, tracking and invoice," Moore says. He adds that accounts receivable processing has been reduced by ten to 15 days because monitoring invoices and payment status no longer requires time-intensive searching by hand.

"All these things feed right into greater sales revenue and better margin control, but the intangible benefits are important, too," observes Moore. "You can be so much more organized and get so much more done with ChannelOnline in a shorter period of time."

Moving forward, Moore anticipates that the company will use its proven strategy with Toughbooks and ChannelOnline as a foundation for the addition of other product lines. "We're on target for revenues of $8 million to $10 million this year," Moore explains, "and that's ambitious for just three people." But as Moore has found, the tide of sales cycle automation lifts all boats.

About Mooring Tech

Mooring Tech Inc. has been providing automated information technology products and services since 1984. buytough.com is an authorized Panasonic TP3 reseller. this means you will receive the highest level of support from discovery to implementation. Our focus on the Toughbook line gives us an advantage over our competitors in that we have expert product knowledge and implementation services for the Toughbooks and accompanying products such as mounting systems, network infrastructure and software. Our trained and certified consultants are eager to answer any of your presales questions as well as provide ongoing support for your Toughbook implementation. For more information, call (877) 532-8088 or visit www.mooringtech.com/ .