Paradigm Omni Case Study:
Embracing Fun and Functionality.
Western Window Systems chooses Paradigm’s Web CenterPoint.When Western Window Systems (WWS) set out to be a top competitor in the custom window and door market, it focused on two strategies: Be easier and more fun to work with and always figure out a way to say yes to customer needs.
It’s an approach that’s working. WWS has seen a compounded annual growth rate of 22 percent for the past three years, with sales growing by more than 10 percent annually since 2014. But success does have its share of complications.
Chief Information Officer, John Engelstad, explains that flexibility is what differentiates WWS. Focusing on a high degree of customization, the Phoenix-based manufacture tackles product configurations other companies won’t touch. And while that’s great for customer satisfaction, a lot of companies can’t scale culturally or operationally and still maintain flexibility in the wake of growth and success.
WWS has figured it out, by starting with a commitment to their mission and supporting it with technology that scales with growth and doesn’t compromise the company’s core values and dealer relationships. That’s why WWS chose Paradigm’s Web CenterPoint, a cloud-hosted, web-based configuration, quoting, and selling solution specifically developed for window and door manufacturers.
Challenge
Deploy a quoting and selling technology solution that enables WWS’s fun, responsive, and relationship-oriented culture, while providing the structure that removes friction, makes it easy for dealers to do business, and scales with growth.
Solution
Paradigm is no stranger to WWS’s technological challenges. Ten years ago, the company implemented Paradigm’s ERP and desktop-based selling platforms. Now, WWS is deploying Web CenterPoint as a front-end quoting and selling experience.
Results
Web CenterPoint makes it easier for dealers to quote more, manage the complexity of WWS’s highly customizable products, and build the positive relationships that have become the foundation of WWS’s success.
“Before Paradigm, Western was a very manual, paper-driven company with limited potential to scale…After Paradigm we have more systems and processes in place to ensure that, as sales increase, we can support that growth without the exponential growth in overhead and personnel associated with manual processes.”
John Engelstad
Chief Information Officer, PGTI Innovations/Western Window Systems
Make it Easy
Engelstad explains that Web CenterPoint will make it easier and faster to get a quote and make the dealer’s job easier. “The easier you can make it to quote and do business with us, the easier it is for us to do sales and go after new markets.”
WWS onboarded over 100 new dealers last year, so Engelstad is pleased that training on Web CenterPoint is easy, noting that the company will see less friction training new dealers on technology. That means they can spend more time training on product knowledge – “Which is how it should be,” he says. “With Paradigm’s intuitive web-based platform, we will give dealers their login credentials, they’ll sign on, and they’re good to go.”
Manage Complexity
With almost 100,000 configuration rules packed into WWS’s product catalog, managing complexity with a quoting tool is critical. “Everything about our catalog is designed around optimizing speed to quoting,” Engelstad emphasizes. “Considering our complexity and the number of options in our catalog, we can still quote a product very quickly. Paradigm’s deployment controls all that complexity.”
Prior to teaming with Paradigm, WWS used a green-screen manufacturing platform that accommodated order entry but required dealers to quote and enter details manually. “With our level of growth, that’s a situation that just can’t scale,” Engelstad says. “We launched 14 new products in our Performance line last year. That’s not common in this industry. If we continued with our previous system, we’d have to hire an army of estimators. Paradigm’s front-end technology will enable our sales organization to scale and go after new markets without having to hire more and more people as we grow.”
Build Relationships
Engelstad is proud to note that that every decision WWS makes points back to the company’s vision for success: “Have fun creating a winning company that changes construction and helps our partners live better.” To achieve that vision, he says positive relationships must be part of the formula. “If it’s easier to do business with somebody else, at some point we risk not only losing a sale, but losing a relationship,” he says. “This makes you think of the technology you use.”
For example, Engelstad says a dealer’s quoting time is dramatically impacted by the performance of their machine and the quoting solution they’re running. “So moving our system to the web with Paradigm just makes it easier on the dealers. The Paradigm quoting tool lends itself to being fast and very easy to use for quoting a pretty complex product.”
Plus, Engelstad notes that Paradigm is the dominant player in this industry for quoting software, explaining that if you’re running anything but Paradigm, you’ll have to constantly explain to your dealer why you don’t use the industry standard. “In the end, we need to accommodate the demand from our dealers. So for us, the partnership that we’ve had with Paradigm has been instrumental.”