IBM Helps ScotSystems Launch B2B Internet Portal For Convenience Stores And Gas Stations - Company Business and Marketing

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, April 24, 2000

ScotSystems, Inc. Thursday announced it has chosen an IBM AS/400e server to power StoreReport.com, a new B2B Internet portal designed to help convenience stores and gas stations do their ordering and billing on-line, saving them time and money. The Web site will enable convenience stores and gas stations to rent business applications for as low as $99 per month and more easily connect with suppliers, manage inventory, process payroll, and simplify accounting procedures.

ScotSystems hopes to automate 180,000 convenience stores and gas stations by connecting their back office to the more than 4,000 grocery and fuel suppliers in a single place on the Internet. By going to the StoreReport.com site, grocery suppliers can virtually connect to their retail customers' systems by logging onto the ScotSystem's network. For example, the supplier can post its invoices to the site and the convenience store owners can review them and immediately add the invoice to their accounts payable application, eliminating the delay in receipt through regular mail.

The AS/400e powered ScotSystems portal has already saved one convenience store 10 hours a day in paperwork - - time the customer now plans to devote to expanding his business.

Mac's Mini-Mart (Mac's) signed up for ScotSystem's StoreReport.com last week to manage its five mini-mart stores located throughout Mississippi. Before signing up for the service, every piece of merchandise (tobacco, beer, groceries and fast food) received in a Mac's store was followed by a paper invoice. The invoices received for deliveries each day, plus all the sales receipts and shift reports (detailing activity on each cash register, for each shift of the day) had traditionally been collected from each store at the end of the day. This mountain of paperwork was then forwarded to Mac's central office in Laurel, Mississippi for accounting. It took anywhere from three days to one month to receive a written report detailing activity on any one particular business day. This resulted in approximately four filing cabinets full of paperwork each month and made access to important sales and purchase data nearly impossible. Now, the entire routine is automated and online with the StoreReport.com portal.

"This new system is going to cut my time spent in the office by 10 hours per day and give me reports on demand that I need to make business decisions," says Malcolm Carmichael, vice president of Mac's Mini-Mart. "In addition, the two employees I'm paying to handle this paperwork can now concentrate on handling the more important things."

In addition to time saved, cost was a factor in Mac's decision.

"We looked at several alternatives that cost between $50,00-80,000," says Carmichael. "With StoreReport.com, we're managing our business for less than $100 per month. In addition to the exorbitant prices of other systems, we would have had to constantly upgrade the technology and add more systems as our business grows."

"Together, IBM and ScotSystems Inc. are providing a cost-effective solution for store owners who had previously maintained their own PC's," said Bill Scott, CEO of ScotSystems. "Convenience stores can now avoid the headaches of problem software running on computers that can be obsolete in just a few months. ScotSystems will maintain and upgrade the software and hardware at a single site, so all the store owners need to do is log-in and get down to business."

Convenience stores throughout the country can log onto www.StoreReport.com and set up an account in less than five minutes, giving them access to a fully-integrated package to manage their business, including profit and loss statements, accounts receivable, general ledger, warehouse inventory, accounts payable and payroll. All of the information is stored on the AS/400e at ScotSystems' headquarters in Vicksburg, Mississippi. One of the two AS/400 servers on location in Vicksburg serves the applications, the other serves the web pages.

ScotSystems Inc. customers can access their accounts and use applications 24 hours a day through the Web. Convenience store operators will also have around-the-clock customer service available to them via the internet or telephone.

During the last two weeks, beta tests - - which included clients already familiar with the applications programs running on their in-house systems - - have proven that the system, operating over the Internet, is as fast, or faster than running in-house conventional systems. During the entire two-week period, the company has reported no significant failures and the system remained on line constantly. ScotSystems attributes this reliability to the superb performance of the AS/400 midrange system, as well as to its speed and reliability.

"Either you run this type of business on the AS/400 or you just don't run it at all, " says Bill Scott, president of ScotSystems Inc. "We are thrilled with the AS/400 --it never needs repairs, runs night and day and cuts bottom-line costs by at least half when compared to the alternative--the PC."