Case Studies | Wholesale Electric


  • Location: Bay City, MI
  • Industry: Electrical Distribution
  • Products & Services: Wholesale Distribution of Residential and Commercial Lighting Solutions
  • Revenue: US $2 million
  • Richard Dodick

    Owner and CEO, Wholesale Electric

    • The system has paid for itself in efficiency and accuracy increases alone. The Savance staff always went above and beyond to make sure this project was successful – and we are reaping the rewards of that success."
    • Savance is one of those rare vendors that ALWAYS go above and beyond the call of duty.
Key Benefits
  • Improved efficiency, speed, and ease-of-use.
  • Enhanced visibility and transparency enterprise-wide.
  • Increased savings of time and money.

Wholesale Electric

Expert implementation at a comfortable pace yields a quick ROI

- A Savance Enterprise Client Case Study

Savance Enterprise was the first package we found that helped us address [our needs] with a single solution.

Background Wholesale Electric is a Michigan-based supplier of residential and commercial lighting solutions. Their 1,800 sq.ft. Bay City showroom displays indoor/outdoor light fixtures from a number of leading manufacturers. In addition, the company is a full line electrical distributor of commercial lighting and parts. Wholesale Electric has been in business since 1960, with over 50 years of experience the company has done well in servicing their clients in the Great Lakes Bay Region of Michigan. Challenges With the recent downturn in the economy it was clear that Wholesale Electric's antiquated use of pencil-and-paper-based processes would not be supported going forward. "We had one single computer running Excel to track item costs, and another separate computer to handle invoicing," explains Wholesale Electric owner and CEO Dick Dodick. "We knew we needed to find ways to operate more efficiently – without increasing expenses."

"We knew we had to make changes to stay competitive. But change is a difficult concept when you have been doing business the same way for so long."

The Search Wholesale Electric began a search for a solution that would help them automate their many manual processes and streamline operations enterprise-wide. But that search initially proved more difficult than expected. "All the software we had looked at was either devoted to the retail or the wholesale side of business exclusively," explains Dodick. "Savance Enterprise was the first package we found that helped us address the needs of both of those areas with a single solution." Implementation Savance first helped Wholesale Electric put a plan together that would allow them to move forward with confidence in highly uncertain times – without any major disruptions to the company's existing, day-to-day business activities. A dedicated Savance technician helped Wholesale Electric begin the process of consolidating the company's various, disparate systems onto a single, centralized platform. "This single system, single-vendor approach made it much easier for us than having to have someone put in the computers and someone else put in our new business system," Dodick explains. "It was a great time and money saver."
Implementation Savance first helped Wholesale Electric put a plan together that would allow them to move forward with confidence in highly uncertain times – without any major disruptions to the company's existing, day-to-day business activities. A dedicated Savance technician helped Wholesale Electric begin the process of consolidating the company's various, disparate systems onto a single, centralized platform. "This single system, single-vendor approach made it much easier for us than having to have someone put in the computers and someone else put in our new business system," Dodick explains. "It was a great time and money saver."

Savance's thorough training and patience was the key to this transition and helped us ramp up quickly.

From there, Savance took a step-by-step approach to customizing a complete business system specific to Wholesale Electric's needs – at a pace the company felt comfortable with. "A number of staff went from never using a computer to scanning items, printing labels, and e-mailing orders quickly and error-free, within a very short timeframe," says Dodick. "Savance's thorough training and patience was the key to this transition and helped us ramp up quickly." Read more about the implementation process in Richard Dodick's Testimonial for Savance Enterprise. Results & Benefits With the initial rollout complete, Wholesale Electric was able to expedite its operations significantly, enterprise-wide. And both Wholesale Electric's staff as well as its leadership immediately liked what they saw. "Part of what we have uncovered with the use of Savance software is that the number of mistakes we were making – on both the retail and the wholesale sides – using our old processes likely got completely overlooked, which turned out to be losses for the company," says Dodick. Since the initial rollout over 10 years ago, Wholesale Electric has realized a host of tangible business benefits. "Now our purchasing, quoting, labeling, and inventory are done so much more quickly and easily than they used to be – and with far fewer errors – that the system has paid for itself in efficiency and accuracy increases alone," Dodick continues. "In the past few years, we have had to get very lean and mean in terms of overhead. The Savance staff always went above and beyond to make sure this project was successful in helping Wholesale Electric do more with less – and we are reaping the rewards of that success."