Triangle Auto Supply deploys cloud-based solution to improve e-commerce

For the owners of Triangle Auto Supply, e-commerce represents the future of their business, and cloud computing technology is the path to getting there. The company has deployed a cloud-based business management system from Fuse5.

"If you don't change, you won't be around," says owner Jim DeGrasse. "The major players have connectivity to the installers and the dealerships. If you are working with a shop owner who is tech savvy, and most of them are, they want to connect electronically. They don't want to make a phone call to find out if you have a part in stock. We have better quality parts and great prices, but we didn't have that ability to connect to those customers."

The new Fuse5 solution includes inventory, forecasting, pricing, sales, and e-commerce functionality. Triangle deployed the system at the beginning of 2014.

Triangle Auto Supply is the oldest family owned and operated parts store in Yakima, Wash. The company was also an early innovator on the technology front. Triangle was the first parts store in Yakima to have a computer. Jim and his brother Todd DeGrasse say the store ran on a modified software solution that was customized by their uncle for decades. "Our uncle kept improving that system, and we migrated it right up to the last version on Microsoft Windows," Jim DeGrasse says.

However, the older program lacked a lot of functionality. As Triangle moved more into e-commerce and offered parts via the Internet, the manual processes required for listing inventory become more and more inefficient. "There was a lot of manual work to make that integration happen," says Todd DeGrasse. "It was very time consuming on our part to try and manage the brick and mortar business and also do all this work for the Internet business."

Jim evaluated the Fuse5 software at SEMA and AAPEX. "It was cutting edge, and I could tell very quickly that these guys really got it, understood how the technology needed to work, and if we had an issue or concern, they would take care of it," he says.

Todd, however, had some reservations about moving to a cloud-based system. "An early concern we had was what would happen if the Internet went down. We're fortunate here that we have service through out telecom, and we also have a cable Internet feed coming into the building," he says. "In order for our network to go down, we'd have to lose both of those."

Once he saw what the solution was capable of, however, Todd was sold. "The old paradigm of legacy-based computer systems, where you buy software and hardware, that business model is essentially dead," he says.

Preparation for the deployment included training on the new solution for the employees, and migrating data from the existing software to Fuse5.

According to the DeGrasses, the cloud deployment went very quickly, and the Fuse5 team was very responsive. "We kind of put them in a bind, because we gave them a relatively short window of time to switch from the old system to the new," Todd says. "We didn't sign a contract until almost December, and we wanted to go live on Jan. 1, 2014. They spent a fair amount of time looking at our existing data, but we were essentially up on the new system for testing within a week."

Although the system has only been running for a few months, it is already generating benefits. "Where we're really seeing early benefits with Fuse5 is the ability to streamline purchase orders with vendors, which is a huge plus for us," Todd says. "We also have more control over the flow of inventory."

Triangle has used Transnet for EDI for years. Prior to Fuse5, the company would need to export data files from their business software into an Excel spreadsheet, create a purchase order file and send it to Transnet.

"With Fuse5, I can populate the order, take stuff off that I don't want, create the purchase order when I'm done, and then I click a button and it automatically sends it to the supplier," Jim DeGrasse says. "We never had the ability to do that before."

The brothers also expect to reap benefits from the software's price matrix capabilities. "We're still implementing that," Jim says. "We're new at this, so it will take some time for us to fully realize all the benefits that are in this software."

The company is also deploying new software from WHI, but that installation is still ongoing. When it's completed, the two software systems will be integrated to help speed Triangle's e-commerce activities. Nearly 60 percent of the company's sales are online, so bolstering e-commerce capabilities is a priority.

Triangle is also exploring more online opportunities with its suppliers. "Being in a smaller marketplace, we are challenged by the number of customers we can serve locally," Jim DeGrasse says. "There's only so much inventory you can justify on that customer base. What the Internet has allowed us to do is take advantage of better relationships with our suppliers."

For example, Triangle supplies Redline/Weber carburetors globally. "We wouldn't have that relationship if we weren't able to sell on the Internet through various channels," he says.

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