Deliver morePlumbing and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning(HVAC) distributors like you face tremendouschallenges across an increasingly complex businessenvironment. You source, stock, and sell a proliferationof products in an ever-fluctuating construction market.You offer daily and emergency product deliveries,while increases in commodity prices along withcustomer service demands present hurdles at every step.

To meet customer service expectations, you have tomanage the process of sourcing quickly and efficiently.You likely deliver your products and services through adiverse, global distribution network. You operate withincomplex trade relationships, and must fulfill complexorder requirements containing a variety ofstock-keeping units (SKUs) effortlessly. And you mustdo this all with minimal resources, while keeping upwith an unpredictable market.

Whether you distribute industrial plumbing equipment,refrigerator systems, air treatment products, or airconditioning and heating solutions, you need a flexiblebusiness solution that helps you maximize employeeproductivity and customer service levels whilecontrolling costs and margins. With Infor™ Distribution,you’ll efficiently execute your core business processeswith real-time information. You’ll eliminate information

blind spots within your operation by generatingtransparency throughout the organization, giving youthe ability to optimize decision making at all levels.

Meet your unique needsYou can’t meet the unique needs of the distributionindustry with generic software that treats all industriesequally. At Infor, we understand that the distributionindustry isn’t like any other industry. So, we’ve createdsoftware that’s tailored to the specific needs of this industry.

Infor Distribution includes all the capabilities to managethe distribution lifecycle built-in—not bolted on. So whatdoes that mean for you? Faster deployments and fewer modifications. You get up and running morequickly, with fewer disruptions to your business.Upgrades are faster, too. So you can quickly adapt yourbusiness processes to the rapid changes of thedistribution industry.

Enhance performanceWith more than 30 years of experience solving thebusiness challenges of plumbing and HVACdistributors like you, Infor can help you enhance yourbusiness performance and flexibility, while controllingcosts, streamlining operations, and improving responsetimes and customer service levels.

Infor Distribution for plumbing and HVAC distributors

“Infor Distribution is a robust and flexible ERPsystem that allows us to grow and expand ourbusiness. It provides our people with the toolsand resources they need to create loyalcustomers and achieve best-in-class business performance.”

—Bruce Himes, CEO, Western Water Works

2 Infor Distribution for plumbing and HVAC distributors

Effectively manage complex inventories for multipleentities with Infor Distribution—designed specifically forthe plumbing and HVAC distribution industry. You’ll havethe tools you need to increase productivity, improveprofitability, and support growth—today as well as tomorrow.

Optimize business processesInfor Distribution offers the broadest, deepest solution forthe plumbing and HVAC distribution industry. Ourintegrated suite addresses your most critical businessprocesses, including those highlighted here:

Supply chain planning

Good planning means having the right amount of productin the right place at the right time. It can have atremendous impact on both customer service satisfactionand the amount of capital tied up in inventory. Accuratelypredict and manage demand at all points in your networkwith Infor Distribution. Your overall costs can be reducedthrough quicker response time, enhanced deployment,and reduced overstocking and obsolescence.

This gives you:

• Greater control and visibility over your operations

• The ability to reduce overall inventory holdings

• Optimized supply chain control

Order management

Getting an order right the first time is what keepscustomers coming back. With Infor Distribution, you canmanage the efficient taking of orders through a variety ofintegrated sales channels, such as EDI/XML,over-the-counter sales, web-based sales, telesales, andfield sales. Optimize order taking by utilizing automatedfunctions, including catalog management, comprehensivepricing, and inventory availability and promising.

With Infor Distribution, you can improve customersatisfaction by being able to:

• Manage multiple sales channels more effectively.

• Manage non-stock and special orders with ease.

• Reduce margin erosion through improved processes.

Supply chain execution

Fulfill your commitments and better organize youroperations to maximize efficiency with Infor Distribution.You’ll have greater ability to expedite warehouseprocesses and resources, and most importantly, ensurethat orders are cost effectively and reliably delivered ontime. Easily manage value-added services, such as24-hour emergency service, rental, kitting, productconfiguration, servicing, and assembly—all of which helpyou stay ahead of the competition.

With Infor Distribution, you can:

• Allow suppliers to streamline services to distributors.

• Facilitate greater efficiencies by improving warehouseprocesses and control.

• Offer easy management of additional revenue streamssuch as value-added services.

Grow your businessAll of your business requirements—customer and supplierrelationship management, sales-force automation,financials, business performance analysis and reporting,and more—can be met with Infor Distribution’scomprehensive and industry-specific capabilities.

You’ll benefit from the solution’s support for key businessneeds, such as:

Infor Distribution for plumbing and HVAC distributors:

• Is specialized for plumbing and HVAC distributors.

• Serves the needs of over 5,500 distributors globally.

• Is built with over 30 years of distribution experience.

• Manages the entire distribution lifecycle.

• Supports global distribution networks.

3Infor Distribution for plumbing and HVAC distributors

Business intelligence: Sales, financial, and inventoryinformation must be connected, accessible, andunderstandable. You need information to negotiate betterdeals with vendors, identify ways to improve efficiency,and better manage your inventory. With Infor Distribution,you’ll have the visibility you need to make better, moreinformed decisions and improve performance.

Web presence: You need a web storefront to strengthenties to existing customers and reach new customers—selling to this generation, as well as the next. With InforDistribution, you’ll have a solution that optimizes youronline product catalogs and allows your customers topurchase when and how they want to buy. Give yourcustomers the ability to enter their own orders and takeadvantage of self-service capabilities, such as checkingthe status of their orders and open invoices.

Sales tools: Selling is critical to your success, and yoursales team is one of your most important assets. With InforDistribution, your sales team will have the tools andinformation they need to sell more effectively and betterunderstand their customers and products.

Counter sales: For plumbing and HVAC distributors whoare contractor-based, counter sales are a majorcomponent of the business. With Infor Distribution, yourcounter screens will facilitate quick entry using analternative screen design and workflows for tasks such ason-account functionality, credit card processing, cashdrawer balancing, and forced password entry per orderfor counter clerks who share terminals.

Rebates: Setup, process, and reconcile rebates with InforDistribution’s advanced capabilities, including EDI supportfor setup and reconciliation, processing of rebates ondemand or scheduled, and chained rebates.

Pricing: Implement a flexible pricing strategy with InforDistribution’s advanced enterprise capabilities, includingmultiple price/rebate types and velocity pricing to ensureyour customers get the right product price and you havean opportunity to increase gross margin.

Efficient buying: Keeping inventory costs down is critical.With Infor Distribution, you have one central location fromwhich to make intelligent purchasing decisions about whatto buy, at the right price. You’ll also have the opportunityto provide important information regarding vendorperformance and analysis. Ultimately this will help toreduce margin erosion through improved processes and offerings.

Increasing margins: Plumbing and HVAC distributorsoperate at low margins, and looking for ways to reducecosts is a top priority. Whether you’re creating what-ifscenarios to understand the impact of price changes, ormodeling the future impact of cost changes on your grossmargin and pricing, you’ll gain better analysis to guideyour choices before enacting changes. You’ll also havethe tools to better manage the warranty and services onparts, providing another opportunity to increase margins.

Kitting: Competitive pressures have forced plumbing and HVAC distributors to explore new methods of staying profitable. Finding fresh ways to package andmarket a product is one way to stay ahead. Easily manage kit sales and production with Infor Distribution’ssupport for pre-built, build-on-demand, and build-on-the-fly kit processing.

Job management: You need tools to manage yourcustomers’ long-term jobs. Simplify contract jobmanagement by automating the bidding, awarding, billing maintenance, and tracking procedures with Infor Distribution.

Inventory control: Efficiently manage onsite, offsite, andeven non-stock inventory with Infor Distribution’s inventorycontrol capabilities, such as advanced order and inventory management.

Work smarterInfor Distribution is built on groundbreaking technologiesthat deliver new levels of usability, connectivity, andinsight. Based on the latest advances from both theconsumer and enterprise worlds, these technologieschange everything you thought you knew about business software.

Organized. Role-based dashboards and powerfulpersonalization tools let you arrange graphs, key metrics,priority alerts, and favorite inquiries on a single screen,giving you one place to go for all the information you needto make better decisions, faster.

Mobile. Infor mobile applications put the power of yourInfor solutions on your tablet or smartphone, so you canbe productive anytime, from anywhere. Sales managersand account representatives can view up-to-dateinformation on customer orders, shipments, andinteractions when they are on the road. With Infor mobileapplications, out of the office doesn’t mean out of touch.

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Confident. Alerts and pre-defined workflows delivercritical, role-based information automatically to yourdesktop or smartphone. Act faster with early notification of late deliveries, missed shipments, and creditnotifications so you can be more proactive with yoursuppliers and customers.

Connected. With inventory management in one system,shipment management in another, and personnel recordsin yet a third, it can be almost impossible to get acomplete picture of your business. Infor’s ION technologysimplifies connectivity between your existing applications,both Infor and non-Infor. You get seamless integration anda unified user experience across all your systems.

Reliable. Infor Distribution provides a single, reliablesource for all your reports—even when that information is drawn from multiple systems across your business.Out-of-the-box, you’ll derive the benefits of powerfulrole-based reports and industry-specific businessmeasures derived from our 30+ years in the distribution industry.

Social. With our social collaboration capabilities, you cantransform the way your company works. Imagine beingable to work together on the same project or document inreal-time. Everyone in your organization will be able towork in communities of shared interests, collaborate moreeffectively, improve processes, act faster, be moreproductive, and get better results.

Improve the bottom lineTo succeed today, your plumbing and HVAC distributionbusiness has to hold enough inventory to supply yourcustomers as the seasons change. You need to expediteyour sales process with tools for quickly finding the rightproduct, linking non-stock and special orders. Plus, youneed to manage warranty and service on parts efficientlyto build your revenue.

With Infor Distribution, you’ll be able to better anticipateyour customers’ requirements, adapt your inventory asquickly as the weather changes, and offer your suppliers abetter way to deliver the goods. You’ll strengthen yoursupply chain collaboration, automate your businessprocesses, and create tangible benefits all the way downto the bottom line.

With Infor Distribution, you’ll:

• Increase productivity and customer service levels.

• Improve transparency throughout the organization.

• Better predict demand.

• Increase supply chain visibility.

• Reduce costs.

• Reduce overstock.

• Improve order taking.

• Optimize operations.

About Infor.Infor is the world's third-largest supplier of enterprise applications and services, helping more than 70,000 large andmid-size companies improve operations and drive growth across numerous industry sectors. To learn more about Infor,please visit www.infor.com.

Copyright© 2012 Infor. All rights reserved. The word and design marks set forth herein are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Infor and/or related affiliates and subsidiaries. All othertrademarks listed herein are the property of their respective owners. This document is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute a commitment to you in any way. Theinformation, products and services described herein are subject to change at any time without notice. www.infor.com.INF1230024-1291636-EN-US-1212-1