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Highway Technologies Deploys Host Analytics to Improve Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning
Newly Automated Processes Enabling More Strategic Use of Equipment and Personnel
| Source: Host Analytics
REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwire - October 28, 2009) - Highway Technologies, the largest provider
of highway safety services and products in the US, has deployed a corporate
performance management solution from Host Analytics to improve profits
though better sales, inventory and operations planning (S&OP), Host
Analytics announced today. In implementing Host Analytics, Highway
Technologies has automated a series of tasks that previously were performed
manually, including the process by which sales and operations staff share
information and allocate equipment and personnel. As a result, Highway
Technologies has been able to greatly reduce unnecessary expenditures and
react more quickly and strategically to customers.
Based in Oak Brook, Illinois, Highway Technologies is a privately held
company whose clients mainly are state departments of transportation,
general contractors, and municipalities to whom Highway Technologies
provides pavement marking equipment and services, traffic control devices,
signage and other equipment along with highly trained and experienced
traffic control personnel.
With more than 45 branches throughout the US, it's imperative that sales
and operations managers have easy access to common data regarding
equipment, staff availability, and demand across all locations. Prior to
deploying Host Analytics, Highway Technologies lacked one centralized
system for this information.
For example, a manager might purchase new road barricades because he or she
didn't know the equipment might be available in another office. Or,
management might maintain current staffing levels despite the fact that a
sales slowdown has the company overstaffed according to currently scheduled
orders. Either of these scenarios could potentially have cost Highway
Technologies tens of thousands of dollars.
But with Host Analytics, over 100 managers and company executives including
the CEO have real-time, web-based access to sales and inventory data,
streamlining communications and significantly improving the equipment and
personnel allocation and planning processes.
Highway Technologies selected Host Analytics after a comprehensive review
of competitive systems, including Oracle Hyperion Planning. Host Analytics
was chosen for several reasons. To begin with, the Host Analytics solution
is delivered via the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, which makes it
significantly less expensive and easier to deploy than competitive
on-premises software. Highway Technologies estimates that choosing SaaS
over an on-premise solution saved the company the cost of one full-time
employee, and mitigated the need to purchase new hardware to run the
solution.
As important, however, is the speed with which the Host Analytics solution
was deployed: the entire implementation took three weeks. According to
Scott Rehner, vice president of IT for Highway Technologies: "In my
experience, I don't think some of the competitors would have been able to
get a server up-and-running in three weeks, let alone have the application
implemented.
"We're finally all on the same page," said Rehner. "People are
communicating and you really can't put a value on that. Instead of buying
new equipment or hiring personnel, we're now sharing resources amongst our
many locations enabling Highway Technologies to keep its costs down and
most importantly to better serve our customers. And because the Host
Analytics application resembles Microsoft Excel in terms of its
look-and-feel, it's been very easy for our team to work with. Simply: the
move to Host Analytics is something we should have done a long time ago,
and now that we have it I can't imagine doing sales, inventory and
operations planning without Host Analytics."
About Host Analytics
Founded in 2000, Host Analytics is the leading provider of cloud-based
corporate performance management (CPM) solutions to large and mid-market
companies including JP Morgan Chase, Procter & Gamble, Otis Spunkmeyer,
Pitney Bowes, and Red Roof Inns. Host Analytics' solutions help financial,
line-of-business and departmental executives improve budgeting, forecasting,
financial consolidations, dashboarding, scorecarding, reporting and analysis. Host Analytics delivers its
suite of CPM solutions via the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, enabling customers to realize fast
time-to-value and a continuous flow of new features and functionality. For
additional information, visit http://www.hostanalytics.com/.
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