IBM today announced that it has provided U.S. Lumber Group with a business intelligence (BI) solution that is providing the company with in-depth reporting capabilities in real time versus their original system that provided reports daily.

The system is helping the Atlanta-based wholesale building-materials distributor view key performance indicators enabling them to make smarter, more informed decisions since it is now possible to quickly compare actual results with strategic goals.

As a midsized company, it was important that U.S. Lumber find a new solution that would reduce overhead costs and increase customer satisfaction. This is particularly significant in today's economic environment. Initially, U.S. Lumber had a small vendor providing day-to-day metrics. The Web-based application was limited to daily performance indicators and the overall data scheme was small in scope and difficult to extract. As the company grew and became more sophisticated, U.S. Lumber's ability to forecast a year's sales activities became a lot more complicated with the available tools.

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