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Success Story
Contract Furniture Source Furnishes the Globe
with the Help of TeamDesign®
Norman Houle, controller at Contract Furniture
Source
- Dealership:
- Contract Furniture Source, Inc.
- Industry:
- Furniture
- Alignment:
- Teknion Furniture Systems, Ltd.
- Employees:
- 60
- Annual Sales:
- $35 million Canadian
- Contract Furniture Source Uses:
Contract Furniture Source is based in Canada but manages projects across the globe. As the holder of contracts with the Canadian government, the Ottawa, Ontario-based company is responsible for furnishing Canadian embassies around the world — from Hong Kong to Singapore to Chicago.
The Teknion dealership sells $35 million worth of products from Teknion and 29 other Canadian manufacturers, as well as related services annually. About 80 percent of the company’s business comes from federal contracts. It manages all of this business with the help of TeamDesign®.
The dealership’s controller, Norman Houle, loves using the program, which was developed specifically for office furniture dealerships. Houle says that TeamDesign helps his sales and admin teams “work smarter, not harder.”
Houle’s first experience with TeamDesign was in 1995 when he joined furniture dealer Advanced Business Interiors as controller. A few years later he came to work for Team-Systems, where he spent six years selling TeamDesign and other Team-Systems products. In 2001 , he sold TeamXpress (an entry-level version of TeamDesign, since discontinued) to Contract Furniture Source and, in 2004, that dealership recruited him to join it as controller.
Prior to 2001, Contract Furniture Source had been using a generic accounting program. The company decided to change because the other program just wasn’t designed for furniture dealerships. “We switched because we knew what TeamDesign could do,” Houle explains.
Over the next three years, Contract Furniture Source upgraded from TeamXpress to the full-blown TeamDesign package and invested in PressBox, which integrates with TeamDesign and enables the company to manage exceptions electronically, without printing reports. During this period, the company was able to double sales without hiring additional administrational staff.
“TeamDesign helps with the financial side — it keeps costs under control, while truly managing projects from start to finish,” Houle says. He also says that it allows the company to easily calculate commissions for the sales staff.
“TeamDesign allows us to share information across the company. It’s been a real benefit to have TeamDesign as the core backbone to the business,” says Houle.
Houle and the other members of Contract Furniture Source’s management team clearly understand the benefits technology can bring to the company’s bottom line. They invest $100,000-$150,000 in technology each year. This figure includes additional software, hardware and infrastructure upgrades, and ongoing training for employees.
In addition to selling and installing office furniture, Contract Furniture Source offers value-added services such as project and asset management and storage. While these services account for only 10 percent of Contract Furniture Source’s revenue, they are also the fastest-growing segment of the company’s operation, and one that Houle believes will become increasingly important over time.
“Services growth is increasing about 30 percent year over year,” Houle says. “We are managing the inventory for government departments. For customers who don’t know how to go about managing their space, we can coordinate those projects for them — everything from space planning and ergonomic studies to moving and inventory management. We charge for these value-added services.”
Contract Furniture Source is also moving into remanufactured furniture alongside Teknion. When Teknion made the decision to offer a line of remanufactured products, Contract Furniture Source was one of the first dealers invited to participate.
With the growing emphasis on green products and environmentally sustainable processes, the company believes this will be another rapid-growth segment of its business. Houle says that he has had some clients purchase 100-percent remanufactured items.
All of these things are being managed with the TeamDesign software developed for office furniture dealerships. And, after 12 years of experience with this software, Houle says, “I just love this program.”
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