Case Study: United Stationers Supply Company achieves timely sales data access and eliminates printing and distribution costs with Information Builders' WebFOCUS

WebFOCUS Delivers Timely Information to United Stationers Sales Staff

United Stationers, the largest U.S. wholesaler of business products (nearly $4B in revenue), faced a challenge: millions of rows of mainframe customer and sales data were delivered as printed CARS reports two to three weeks after month-end, forcing sales reps to rely on stale information and incurring high printing and distribution costs.

In five months they deployed Information Builders’ WebFOCUS as a web front end to the mainframe, delivering daily-updated, drill-down reports with drop-down filters and Excel export while leaving source data on the mainframe. The solution eliminated printing and postage costs, gave about 500 users—sales reps, zone managers and distribution centers—immediate, consistent access to deeper analytics, and enabled retirement of the old mainframe reporting process.

United Stationers Supply Company

Don Busch

Systems Manager