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Industrial Distribution, May 2005

Imagine that your business's technology solution is a house. The operating platform on which it is built is its foundation. The solution's front end is the house's façade, and its database is the framework that holds everything together.

While each of the house's components are equally important, it's particularly critical to choose a solid frame that holds strong against the elements and keeps your belongings - and your family - safe. The same is true for your technology infrastructure: You should select a solution with a database that lets you manage your business information securely, confidently, and cost-effectively.

Those factors make SQL Server ideal for distributors. As a highly scalable, easy-to-administer data management system, it also offers one of the best price-to-performance ratios on the market, along with a set of intuitive tools just about anyone can handle.

Highly Developed and Cost-Effective

At their most basic level, all databases are designed to perform the same task: Store information. What differentiates one database from the next is the method in which it stores your business information - and the tools it offers to query and analyze that data.

Because a huge number of skilled resources have spent years developing features within SQL Server - along with tools and Wizards to help maximize that functionality - the solution is highly developed and easy-to-use. And, because it is so user-friendly, it is also much simpler - and more cost-effective - to find talent to administer the database than it might be to find someone to manage a character-based or more complex application.

According to Chris Evans, system administrator at the Texas-based DXP Enterprises, SQL Server's user-friendliness gives reporting capabilities back to end-users. "In our old, Progress-based system, the database was locked down and it was difficult to create reports or query data," he says, Because the system was so difficult to maneuver, two full-time IT employees spent all day creating reports.

Now, with SQL Server, users can create their own reports - with minimal training. "Reporting isn't an IT function anymore," he says. "We can focus on proactive tasks, and executives can get what they need as soon as they need it. It's a win-win for everyone."

If your business is similar to those of many other distributors' - in which an accounting clerk might act as system administrator - that person can feasibly manage a SQL Server using the tools available in the solution without months' of intensive, expensive education.

Says Bob Mitchell, owner of the Oklahoma-based NorthWest Bearing and Industrial Supply: "There's almost no learning curve," he says. "I had no experience and was up and running in almost no time at all."

Also, because SQL Server is business-class database that allows you to perform backups and index utilities even while your solution is completely operational, it completely eliminates downtime - critical for businesses that operate around the clock, and for Web sites that offer 24- hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week service.

Scalable and Affordable

Perhaps you employ 10 people today, but envision opening six branches and hiring two dozen new employees within five years. Or, maybe you already dominate a certain region - but want to expand into new territories to grow your bottom line.

Your database should offer you the flexibility and the capacity to carry out your five-year plan and manage more users, more customers, and more sales. SQL Server does. As an incredibly scalable data management system, SQL Server can handle the transactions that flow through your business, no matter if 10 or 1,000 people use your enterprise software solution on a daily basis.

Best of all, SQL Server offers the best cost-per-transaction ratios in the industry, which means that it can handle all of your employees' and customers activities cost-effectively.

Connectivity

Because so many of the business technology tools available today - like Excel, Word, and Outlook - are native to the Windows environment - the same environment on which SQL Server is built - it is easy to connect directly to any of these tools to maximize your operations.

Mitchell says he regularly imports information from his SQL database into Excel - something he couldn't do with his Unidata database. "It's very easy to send information to a spreadsheet and produce things like mailing lists and dunning reports," he says. "It's just a lot faster and less labor-intensive."

A database stores the most vital facet of your business: The information you use to manage customers, employees, inventory, and financials. Make sure you choose the best database - like SQL Server - to house this information and further expand your business' possibilities.

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