VarDesk

Like many applications, VARDesk was created by someone who was working “in the trenches,” identified a wide-spread problem and decided to be the one to fix it. In this case, Krunal Patel was working for a Value Added Reseller (VAR), selling technology to businesses in the enterprise space. Krunal knew that VARs typically use multiple tools to manage a client, and saw the need for one tool that did everything.

Challenge

As Krunal explains, most VARs have three siloes: sales, operations and engineering, each with their own information and process management needs. The challenge was to create one app that could address it all. Krunal knew what he wanted from an “end goal” perspective, but didn’t know what it would take to make it happen.

“I got what was in my head down on paper,” Krunal recalls, “and then put that out to multiple companies to get bids. I was looking for a development company that’s based here in the U.S., not overseas.”

Krunal’s decision to go with Metrix Systems was based on two key factors: pricing and capabilities. “With Metrix Systems I got the ‘overseas price,’” says Krunal, “meaning the price I would have paid to have this thing built by a firm that’s based overseas, from a U.S. company. Plus, I loved the fact that they build their apps on top of their own proven platform, Xano. Xano’s flexibility meant they could do things faster, and that was very attractive to me.” With Xano the developers don’t have to “reinvent the wheel” on the backend code—Metrix Systems’ team has already developed it, so they would be able to get Krunal’s project done much more quickly. 

Solution

Metrix Systems took Krunal’s ideas and ran with it, creating a cloud-based comprehensive work management platform for VARs. The VARDesk platform’s long list of capabilities includes giving VARs the ability to… 

• Manage contacts, deals and opportunities – VARDesk has all of the CRM (customer relationship management) functions that sales people rely on, including insightful analytics with easily customized parameters. For example, you can look at sales history for any given time period.
  
  “The concept of ‘reporting’ is old and archaic,” Krunal points out. “On-demand real-time data that you can manipulate is what people are looking for today.”
  
  
• Save significant time uploading vendor quotes – “Normally,” explains Krunal, “when you get a quote from a vendor someone has to manually copy and paste all of the line items into their tool and then apply their mark-ups. VARDesk has a quote engine that lets you import the vendor quotes with just one click. It finds all the line items and lays it out properly. All you do is apply your markup to it. Super easy!”
  
  “This quoting engine is a really big deal!” Krunal adds. “This is one of the biggest pains that most of the tools on the market either cannot handle at all or cannot do affordably. In a VAR with 50 users this alone can save hundreds of hours a week.”

• Track orders – When a customer places an order, VARDesk has a step-by-step process for operations to place the VAR’s order with the vendor and then track all of the details, such as order numbers, shipping dates, etc. Instead of tracking everything on spreadsheets, everything is done on the same app where all of the other information for that client is stored. If someone in sales wants to check on an order status, they no longer have to email someone in operations to do so.
  
  
• Give customers access to order information – Customers can be given limited access to the system through their own login. The customer portal shows quote, order and invoice history; allows them to look at their credits; and shows the assets that are coming up for renewal.

Result

VARDesk is a comprehensive system that gives VARs all of the functionality they need, but at about a third of the cost of what it takes to buy multiple other tools to accomplish the same thing. 

“Metrix Systems has a lot of experience,” Krunal shares, “give excellent advice and are really great to work with. Plus, they’re flexible. When I wanted to change something they were very accommodating, even though they had to recode things. They understood this is a long-term relationship. Doing business with them was like doing business with your family. I could trust them to work autonomously and do the right thing in the application’s architecture, knowing where I wanted to be at the end.”