Walker Supply

Founded in 1927 by Edwin H. Walker, a former printing supervisor at the Government Printing Office in Washington, DC, Walker Supply Company has always focused on meeting the needs of graphic arts professionals with quality products backed by a high level of service. With a deep commitment to its customers’ success, Walker Supply has become firmly established as a leading source of graphic arts products. Offering everything from paper and media for wide format printing to paper finishing equipment, Walker Supply stocks products from quality suppliers offered at competitive prices.

Walker Supply’s physical location in Rockville, Maryland gives them close proximity to customers throughout the Washington, DC and Baltimore metropolitan areas.  At a time when many national dealers have gone to a more centralized distribution model, Walker Supply has a fleet of delivery vans available to provide next or in some cases same-day services required in the printing industry. Its clients include printing companies, sign companies, government agencies and corporations.

Walker Supply invests in training salespeople and customer service representatives who are skilled at establishing one-to-one relationships, explaining how new technologies can help their customers enter new markets, increase productivity and build profits. Walker Supply sells and supports leading brands such as Agfa, Epson, Konica Minolta, GMI and Drytac.  Walker Supply also promotes their own #1 Network branded products.

Brothers Kyle and Kent Walker are currently guiding Walker Supply through its fourth generation of success as a family-owned enterprise, each bringing their unique background and skills to the business.  As successive waves of new technologies have rocked the industry and forced many independent distributors to sell out or fold, Walker Supply has tried to look to the future and help their customers use technology to their advantage.

“The introduction of digital printing cut off a big chunk of the consumables business that once sustained us,” said Kyle.  “Although traditional graphic arts products are still being sold, the market is rapidly shrinking. But where we see digital replacing one area of our business, we seek our own digital offerings as well as wide format and finishing solutions.” 

In order to pursue the opportunity, the brothers decided to spin off WalkerWide Color Solutions as a separate entity. The launch of WalkerWide.com in May, 2009 has extended Walker Supply’s presence in the digital world, setting the company up for further growth and success among yet another generation of printing customers.

Technology Provides Competitive Advantage

Even as Walker Supply’s management team has learned to adjust to external changes over the years, the use of information technology has been vital to managing within.

In the early 1990s, Kent had been studying the inventory management principles of Gordon Graham to gain insight into how Walker Supply might be able to apply lean distribution principles to its business. Kent’s research led him to Infor ERP FACTS, a fully configurable software system with industry-specific buying, stocking, selling and servicing capabilities that fully conformed to Graham’s methodology.  Beginning with an initial installation of eight computer users in 1993, FACTS has been used ever since to automate Walker Supply’s key business functions and optimize the company’s performance.

Shortly after a requisite upgrade to address the Y2K date issue in 2000, Walker Supply made several critical enhancements to FACTS that have proven extremely beneficial. These included the installation of the FACTS EDI module and an Internet e-commerce module.  As Walker Supply has progressed with its use of technology, Earnest & Associates (E&A) has provided a range of value-added services including custom modifications, implementation services, help desk support, consulting and more.

In 2002, Kent invited E&A’s Mike Manning for a visit to discuss how an upgrade from FACTS version 6.7 to 7.5 might benefit Walker Supply.  Recognizing that the implementation of additional FACTS components could help Walker Supply achieve greater efficiencies, Kent asked Mike to draft an upgrade proposal including the Document Delivery, Email and UnForm add-on modules. Kent approved the proposal.  Soon thereafter, E&A’s Stan Mrazeck and Josh Fake worked to successfully implement FACTS for up to twelve computer users.

A major benefit of the updated system has been to help Walker Supply edge closer to the elusive goal of a highly efficient, near-paperless office.  “We envisioned how we could use UnForm to save documents as PDFs and then email to our customers using the Document Delivery and Email modules,” said Kent. “As a result of this implementation, today we’re saving up to 35% in materials and postage while the labor associated with folding, stuffing and mailing has been reduced from hours to minutes, allowing our staff to dedicate more time to revenue-generating services.”  Walker Supply has made it a standard operating procedure to solicit email addresses from its customers in order to grow its Document Delivery email list and further reduce costs.

A few years later in 2006, Kent and Kyle participated in an E&A user group where the latest version of FACTS was demonstrated; once again, Walker Supply became interested in moving its FACTS system forward to take advantage of new feature/functionality.  E&A’s Doug Crosby worked with Walker Supply to specify the system upgrade which included a new computer server, FACTS version 7.6, the VSI-Fax add-on module and related services.  Doug presented the proposal and earned Walker Supply’s approval.  Stan tasked Jim Thomas with responsibility for the project including data conversion, testing and go-live support. Also participating was E&A’s Sean Marks who lent a hand with the software installation, hardware and network support services.

Tammy Wolf served as Walker Supply’s point person during both the 7.5 and 7.6 implementations. Tammy enjoyed the benefits of collaborating with the E&A team onsite. “E&A’s people frequently came to our office to work on our system. We worked very closely with Josh, Jim and Sean to customize the software to our specific requirements.  E&A made it very nice for us because all of the ideas we had about improving the system could be seamlessly dovetailed into the project while they were here delivering services for us,” said Tammy

Tammy commented on how the enhanced feature/functionality of FACTS 7.6 has helped Walker Supply gain insight into its operations. “On the financial side, we can drill down and export data for analysis,” said Tammy. “This is useful for analyzing and managing accounts receivables, general ledger activity, inventory and much more. We can organize the data and gain insight into the key performance indicators that drive success. What percentage of sales is gross profit? What are the operating costs? The availability of this kind of information helps us understand how we can improve our performance and remain profitable.”

Walker Supply’s E-Commerce Strategy Pays Dividends

In parallel with the software upgrades, E&A has enhanced Walker Supply’s e-commerce module which has played a crucial role in helping the company gain brand recognition and penetrate new markets. “When we decided to offer online ordering in the early 2000s, some of our competitors were simply giving their customers fax lists to check off the items they want and asking them to fax it in,” recalled Kent. “We decided to take the next step. Our On-Ramp online ordering system helped us offer a customized solution that made life easier for our customers.  This was very helpful during a period when we were constantly under assault from national competitors with deeper pockets.”

Recounting his experiences from the time when he first setup the e-commerce site, Kent stressed the importance of aligning the ERP system with customer needs and expectations. “We realized it wouldn’t make sense to our customers if our 3,000-plus inventory products were displayed randomly by item code sequence, so we made a modification to FACTS to sort our items by product class,” explained Kent. “We built a hierarchy around prepress, pressroom, wide format, and bindery to create a product class sequence that would be intuitive to our customers and make it easier for them to find the items they wanted to buy.” Kent went on to describe how the company also decided to make customer-specific pricing from the FACTS contract pricing database available to its customers, providing a powerful draw for its most loyal customers to frequent and use the site as much as possible.

The many hundreds of hours of planning and hard work that went into developing Walker Supply’s web site including its integration with FACTS has paid off. Today, up to 30 percent of Walker Supply’s orders are processed online, a number that compares very favorably with distributors in Walker Supply’s peer group. The benefit of offering online self-service has helped Walker Supply transcend its traditional sales territories and attract new customers from across the country, while helping the company achieve efficiencies that allow it to remain competitive through tough economic times.

For example, specific features in the e-commerce module such as ‘favorites lists’ have created additional touch points and new selling opportunities. Walker Supply’s customers can access personalized favorites lists to easily place orders for the products they want most whenever it is convenient for them to do so.  And as customers phone in to request updates to their favorites lists, Walker Supply often harvests business from unexpected sources. “There are some people who you’d never think would take advantage of online ordering but actually love it, such as the guy who works in the press room, because he can order exactly what he needs at a time that fits into his busy schedule,” remarked Kyle.

Kent testified how processing orders through the e-commerce site has allowed Walker Supply to significantly increase throughput and reduce overhead expenses. “When we added e-commerce, our sales surged but we didn’t find it necessary to add a single person to handle the extra volume,” said Kent. “Order entry errors from web orders have been virtually eliminated, and the availability of MSDS sheets online reduces administrative burden on our staff. All of this saves us a substantial amount of time and money.”

E-commerce has proven to be an asset as Walker Supply seeks to convert web leads into new business. Using web marketing techniques such as search engine optimization, Walker Supply entices click-thru’s to its web site from customers who key specific phrases such as ‘rotary trimmers’ into Google or other search tools. “Suddenly, new customers who know what they want to buy are finding us and placing orders unassisted on our web site 24/7/365. It’s great to be able to walk into the office in the morning and have orders  waiting for us to be processed!” enthused Kent.

Walker Supply has carefully positioned e-commerce within its overall sales strategy. “While  traditional sales methods are invaluable to us, e-commerce has opened new doors, helping us sell more niche products and expand our reach across the country,” said Kent.  “We can also use the web to sell our own brand products where we don’t get into direct online price wars. We’re looking to make more of these kinds of sales as our business continues to evolve.”

Walker Supply Looks Ahead

Walker Supply is defining itself as a leader in a rapidly changing industry. With its staff processing thousands of orders each month and providing exemplary service to its customers through its e-commerce sites, the FACTS system has proven to be a solid investment.

“With FACTS, we have found that we can automate more of our business processes which in turn has helped us become more competitive,” said Kent. “Sometimes we take our FACTS system for granted because it has been so reliable and stable.  We also have a very stable and reliable partner with E&A.” 

Kent credits E&A’s value-add services as an important component in sustaining Walker Supply’s system.  For example, Kent cites E&A’s user group series as an important resource that has helped Walker Supply stay abreast of emerging technology and industry trends. “It’s been very valuable to have access to E&A’s user group,” said Kent. “We talk to other people who are doing what we’re doing and learn from guest speakers who offer industry expertise.”

Most importantly, Kent gives high marks for the people at E&A who have supported his system over the years. “The E&A staff has done a good job for us. We get a great response from E&A for all of our software and hardware support issues.”

To learn more, visit the Walker Supply web sites at www.walker-supply.com and www.walkerwide.com.