The Lighting Industry continues to grow in complexity, thanks in part to the current trend in do-it-yourself home improvement programs.

Reality-based TV shows are driving consumer awareness and fueling a burning market desire for increased product selection.

Savvy home-owners and builders can easily educate themselves through the internet and other published material. Successful lighting retailers must carefully anticipate the requests of sophisticated and knowledgeable consumers. When Lighting Solutions Inc. - a Florida based company specializing in contemporary lighting and unique glass art - opened its doors in 2003, it required a software package to manage its complex business processes from end-to-end....

Background - Lighting Solutions Inc.:
Lynne Stambouly has over twenty years in the lighting industry. So when she started her own company in 2003 - Lighting Solutions Inc. - she was determined to 'do it right'. The company needed a product that would effectively manage both front and back office functions across all departments: Sales, Service, Accounting, Operations, plus Shipping & Receiving. The company manages a 2000sqft warehouse in addition to a 3000sqft showroom and Glass Art shop.

According to Stambouly, "The situation was unique, not only because the company was brand new, but because we also wanted to differentiate ourselves from our competitors by offering unique glass art pieces for our more artistically-inclined clients. We needed a software package that met our functional needs of two internal store fronts. It had to be easy-to-learn and cost-effective to implement. The product had to be able to grow with us over time and facilitate the provision of exceptional customer service. We chose Windward System Five because they offered a lighting industry-specific solution, unlike other products on the market today. ”

Reasons Lighting Solutions Inc., choose Windward Software:

The Interface Windward offers a true windows 32-bit graphical user interface unlike the text-based interface still being offered by the handful of other software providers in the lighting industry.

"The LightingPOS Edition interface is great! It's so easy to use,” says Carl Bolling - Opertions Manager, “I know of other companies that are still using the old archaic software which requires obscure function codes that must be taped to the monitor because they are impossible to remember. There is no need for that with Windward’s solution. It is clear and easy-to-use right out of the box. Nobody but Windward offers such an intuitive interface." Bolling claims that other lighting store supplier representatives have noticed it in the showroom and made comments about the interface being the best that had ever seen.

Search Capabilities
The LightingPOS Edition uses a single database yet provides a multitude of ways to view and work with information. Real-time database connectivity from all department views (Sales, Accounting, Shipping & Receiving etc.) means that information is entered once and updated immediately for all users. Therefore, all departments work with current data.

Bolling says his staff like the fact that any little piece of information (like a SKU, barcode, purchase order detail, product description, etc.) can be used to drill into other areas of the system for related information. With a single database, it becomes possible to execute drill-down and lateral searching for the purposes of more effectively managing your business operations.

For example, a customer could walk into the store and offer the sales clerk their name. With only this information, the clerk can check the status of a recent order for three separate items. The clerk could then view the full customer history, purchase and order information, and then check the shipping status of an incoming piece. Perhaps the manager then wishes to know if the same item was a hot-selling commodity in the same month for the previous year. Reports could be run to reveal how much inventory was purchased and compare costs or revenues from past sales.

Functionality
Windward System Five LightingPOS Edition was designed specifically for the lighting industry and, as such, comes complete with all the core functionality needed by lighting retail companies as well as a multitude of optional desired features.

Core functionality includes not only a Point-of-Sale solution but comes completely integrated with full functionality for Inventory Control, Accounting (GL, AP, AR), Shipping & Receiving, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the ability to integrate with third party e-Commerce solutions or with Windward’s own e-Commerce module. Plus, features like barcode capabilities are available which help companies to accurately track their assets and inventory. Barcodes can also improve customer service by reducing transaction time at the sales counter.

Bolling is eager to use an existing but often underutilized feature which allows dealers and suppliers secure, restricted remote access to the store’s LightingPOS Edition. “The hold up is on the suppliers end,” he says, “many of our suppilers are simply not technically equipped or ready for electronic business interactions. The capability exists with Windward’s product. I look forward to the day when our suppliers can update their own information and allow us the ability to check on our orders without having to bother them.”

Unlike some competitor products which cost the client time and money because each solution is basically re-built from scratch virtually every time, Windward Software offers a well-designed off-the-shelf product developed using comprehensive core requirements and then further enhanced based on feedback from existing clients. This fact saves customers time, money, and frustration by eliminating the initial design and testing phase.

Windward welcomes customer feedback for enhancements but the core design is already complete. Time to implement the original solution is negligible. “Enhancement requests are completed in a matter of weeks rather than several months,” says Bolling.

Implementation and Training
Lighting Solutions Inc. started working with the software in late 2003 and went live in January 2004. The company spent about six-eight months in start-up mode but the software implementation took only a matter of days.

“User-training for all department staff was a breeze,” says Bolling, “if you can use windows then you can use this software. Ninety percent of the day-to-day functionality can be learned in three days or less.”

Total Cost-of-Ownership
On this topic Bolling states, ”Windward’s LightingPOS Solution is simply the only off-the-shelf product in the lighting industry that is both sophisticated and well-priced.”