Progress OpenEdge Case Study

KAUFFMAN TIRE & BRAVEPOINT
BravePoint is the largest and most long-standing provider of Progress consulting,
training and database services in the world. The company offers a broad portfolio of
products and services to help its clients streamline business processes, including
applications to help migrate legacy systems of all types to the Web and augmentation
packages to help clients get the most from their Progress-based systems. One example
is BravePoint’s work with long-standing customer Kauffman Tire to modernize its
Progress-based point of sale application. Using its own modernization framework,
BravePoint was able to create a tablet interface that enables Kauffman technicians
to get out from behind the counter and provide a better shopping experience for their
customers. Customers around the world are realizing similar benefits by working with
BravePoint to leverage their existing Progress investment versus implementing a timeconsuming, costly and risky “rip and replace” strategy.
PROGRESS CUSTOMERS MAXIMIZE THEIR RETURN ON
INVESTMENT WITH BRAVEPOINT
Imagine a company has invested tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars over
the years to develop, customize and maintain an application that is essential to running
their business. Unfortunately, the application has just not kept up with the rapid pace
of market change or evolving customer expectations. This is the reality facing many
organizations today–across industries, regions and countries. Some are opting to
abandon their investment, hoping a brand new solution will solve the problem, despite
the inevitable implementation, customization, training and maintenance costs required.
But BravePoint’s customers have found another way to reap the benefits of a modern,
state-of-the art solution while leveraging their existing Progress Software investment.
“With the Progress platform you can get a greater return on your investment without
making some really expensive, risky decisions,” explains Alex Oliveri, Vice President
of Operations for BravePoint. “You can add functionality to a mobile user, build a new
module that you’ve always wanted, or maybe rewrite a module built on old technology to
keep up with the competition. There are so many options out there right now for existing
OpenEdge users.”
In business for over 26 years, BravePoint was one of the first IT companies to recognize
the demand for skilled technical consultants in Progress technologies. Over the years
the company has grown to become the largest provider of Progress consulting, training
and database services in the world. BravePoint offers everything its clients need and
demand to streamline business processes, including applications to help migrate legacy
www.progress.com
CHALLENGE
BravePoint’s customers require
modernizing of their existing
Progress Software-based
systems while minimizing
development, implementation
and maintenance costs.
SOLUTION
BravePoint offers everything
its clients need, like Kauffman
Tire, to streamline business
processes, including applications
to help migrate legacy systems
to the Web and augmentation
packages to help clients achieve
ultimate results from their
Progress-based systems.
BENEFIT
BravePoint’s customers attain a
modern system at a substantial
lower cost and time-todeployment than if they had
chosen to move to a completely
new solution.
2
systems of all types to the Web and augmentation packages to help clients get the most from
their Progress-based systems.
With 125 employees, BravePoint is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chesapeake Utilities
Corporation, a $650+ million diversified utility company. BravePoint serves the needs of
organizations as diverse as ADP, Northrop Grumman, US Army and Navy, Johns Hopkins
University, Eaton and many others.
“While every client project is different, it is safe to say that all of our customers are realizing
substantial ROI by leveraging their existing Progress-based systems,” explains Barbara Ware,
Director of Marketing for BravePoint. “At a minimum, by implementing a brand new solution the
customer would incur costs associated with buying and deploying the product, tailoring that
solution to meet their unique needs, migrating the existing data, and training employees. And
then they would need to factor in the amount of time all of that would take. At BravePoint we are
able to leverage much of a customer’s existing investment and focus the majority of our time,
energy and costs on making changes only where they are needed, for example developing a new
UI.”
BravePoint knows firsthand what its customers are experiencing. A few years ago the Progress
Consulting partner also became a Progress Application partner when it acquired an ISV with an
application developed for the subcontractor industry. BravePoint completely modernized the
legacy Progress-based application, re-launching the solution as ProfitZoom, an application
designed specifically for subcontractor’s profitability that integrates everything from
dispatching to inventory to job costing. The project was so successful that BravePoint was able
to generalize the framework it used which it now calls Application Evolution. The solution is a
modernization framework that BravePoint offers to legacy Progress partners and end users
that want to move forward without losing the strength of their production database or their
product.
“Similar to our own experience with ProfitZoom, our success is our ability to help our customers
find ways to keep the strength of their solutions, which is their Progress database and their
underlying business logic, while evolving their solutions to create a modern, state-of-the-art
system,” explains Bruce Thompson, OpenEdge Enterprise Account Manager for BravePoint.
“We are able to show our clients that Progress technology truly is ‘Future Proof’; that there is
tremendous value in their existing solid, scalable and reliable Progress platform. We help them
find ways to modernize their applications instead of ripping and replacing them, for example
through integration with third-party applications, by creating a new graphical user interface, or
moving to a new deployment platform like mobile, SaaS or the cloud. The end result is that our
customers get a modern system at a substantial lower cost and time-to-deployment than if
they had simply chosen to move to a completely new solution.”
DELIVERING ONGOING INNOVATION AND VALUE
While BravePoint does work with a variety of different technologies, Ware says time and again
Progress is at the top of the list. “We can work with other solutions if need be, but Progress
continues to be our favorite. In our hearts we are always pushing for our clients to stay with
Progress because we know that there is no reason not to; it is simply the best.”
Thompson says there are a number of reasons Progress continues to be the right choice for
BravePoint’s customers. “From a database standpoint it’s easy to manage, it’s solid, and it
doesn’t have to be babysat like some of the other databases. It’s more intuitive in a lot of ways.
And it can easily go toe to toe with competitive solutions, like Oracle. The system can scale to
meet any requirement while maintaining superior performance levels. For example, we have
a customer that is in the teens of terabytes that’s running on Progress. Unlike competitive
www.progress.com
“With the Progress platform
you can get a greater
return on your investment
without making some really
expensive risky decisions.
You can add functionality
to a mobile user, build a
new module that you’ve
always wanted, or maybe
rewrite a module built on old
technology to keep up with
the competition. There are so
many options out there right
now for existing OpenEdge
users.”
Alex Oliveri
Vice President of Operations
BravePoint
3
solutions, the majority of Progress customers don’t need to hire a full time DBA, which is a
major advantage. The language itself is very flexible. And the ability to integrate non-Progress
solutions with OpenEdge is a huge benefit.”
The fact that Progress is committed to delivering continuous innovation to the industry is
critical to BravePoint’s own ability to deliver enhancements to its clients. The company is
looking forward to taking advantage of the new Progress Pacific solution, particularly the
Rollbase cloud platform that allows rapid creation of SaaS business applications using pointand-click, drag-and-drop tools in a standard Web browser with a minimal amount of code.
“We were really impressed with Rollbase from the speed and the ability it took to develop a
prototype. The integration opportunities of Rollbase are very exciting to us. Within a matter
of hours Rollbase will enable us to design and develop full-featured web-based business
applications.”
BravePoint also sees tremendous value in the Progress Corticon Business Rules Management
System (BRMS) for delivering high-quality, high-fidelity, high-performance automated
business decisions. “We expect our customers will be asking for that functionality in the very
near future. It is good to know that with Progress we already have the ability to deliver.”
A PARTNERSHIP ROOTED IN RESPECT AND COLLABORATION
Over the 26 years Progress and BravePoint have been partners, the companies have maintained
close ties at a number points within the organizations. BravePoint’s consulting and sales
professionals often work with Progress sales to support new projects, for example by providing
new software licenses. BravePoint’s Vice President of Sales, Sean Garguilo, has regular calls
with Progress’ sales and marketing organizations. And Thompson, an 18-year veteran with
BravePoint says he frequently meets with different Progress sales reps and account managers
to keep them abreast of what BravePoint is doing and to make sure they are offering the best
services possible. “Our primary focus is to keep Progress users happy, and we want to do that
together with Progress.”
The relationship is truly mutual, as Thompson explains. “When Progress rolled out its Multitenancy solution we actually worked with Progress to write and deliver the training materials.
They value our expertise just as we value theirs. That mutual respect and collaboration are key
benefits of the partnership.”
Ware, who has been with BravePoint for 16 years, says the strength and longevity of the
partnership is what makes their message so powerful and strong. “I have worked with Progress
on a number of marketing-related activities, like case studies and the Exchange conference.
And we were honored to be named Consulting Partner of the Year for the second year in a row.
With Progress we truly feel important and valued.”
BRAVEPOINT IN ACTION & PROOF POINT: KAUFFMAN TIRE
IMPROVES THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE BY MODERNIZING ITS
POINT OF SALE SYSTEM
How does a leading tire company with 50 retail stores, 14 wholesale distribution centers,
four commercial tire centers, a retreading facility and an e-commerce site stay ahead of the
competition? By staying ahead of the technology curve with their point of sale application.
As a long-standing customer of BravePoint, Kauffman Tire knew just where to turn to
modernize their TirePro application. Using Application Evolution, BravePoint was able to create
a tablet interface that enables Kauffman technicians to get out from behind the counter and
provide a better shopping experience for their customers. Using a tablet, the salesperson
can scan the car for history and compatible tires while referencing their existing Progress
www.progress.com
“We have worked with
BravePoint for years and
have always trusted them
to manage our Progress
projects skillfully and meet
our budget and timing
expectations. But even with
that kind of confidence, we
were pleasantly surprised
by the professionalism and
efficiency of the Evolution
process and BravePoint’s
project managers. We would
absolutely recommend
BravePoint’s AP Evolution
to anyone wishing to
modernize their Progress
application.”
Richard Aldredge
CIO
Kauffman Tire
4
OpenEdge database. This is revolutionary and BravePoint is at the forefront of this technology
and innovation.
“We were able to take what we learned when we modernized our own ProfitZoom application
and leverage that experience to produce a browser-based user interface that was sized and
scoped for a tablet device while maintaining the underlying Progress database and logic,”
explains Thompson.
After completing the project ahead of schedule, Richard Aldredge, CIO at Kauffman Tire, was
able to pilot a single store and gauge positive customer experience. “The Application Evolution
process with BravePoint has been a completely satisfying and painless experience,” says
Aldredge. “We have worked with BravePoint for years and have always trusted them to manage
our Progress projects skillfully and meet our budget and timing expectations. But even with
that kind of confidence, we were pleasantly surprised by the professionalism and efficiency of
the Evolution process and BravePoint’s project managers. We would absolutely recommend
BravePoint’s AP Evolution to anyone wishing to modernize their Progress application.”
“We can work with other
solutions if need be, but
Progress continues to be our
favorite. In our hearts we
are always pushing for our
clients to stay with Progress
because we know that there
is no reason not to; it is
simply the best.”
Barbara Ware
Director of Marketing
BravePoint
ABOUT KAUFFMAN TIRE
Kauffman Tire operates over 50 retail stores in Georgia and Florida; fourteen wholesale distribution centers in seven states; four commercial tire
centers and one Bandag retreading facility in NE, Ohio and the e-commerce site Tread Depot. Kauffman Tire offers daily delivery to customers out of
all wholesale centers, with a fleet of approximately 150 vehicles. Kauffman Tire’s thorough knowledge of passenger, light truck, medium truck, farm,
specialty, OTR, industrial and commercial tires, and their network of retail stores and wholesale distribution centers, allow Kauffman Tire to respond
efficiently and effectively to its customers’ needs. www.kauffmantire.com
ABOUT BRAVEPOINT
Headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, BravePoint , Inc. is a leading provider of consulting, training, and application
development to a variety of clients worldwide. Since 1987, BravePoint has applied business experience and technology
expertise to improve customers’ profitability and competitiveness with the use of technology. BravePoint is a subsidiary of
Chesapeake Utilities Corporation (NYSE: CPK). www.bravepoint.com
®
PROGRESS SOFTWARE
Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global software company that simplifies the development, deployment and management of business applications onpremise or in the cloud, on any platform or device, to any data source, with enhanced performance, minimal IT complexity and low total cost of ownership.
WORLDWIDE HEADQUARTERS
Progress Software Corporation, 14 Oak Park, Bedford, MA 01730 USA Tel: +1 781 280-4000 Fax: +1 781 280-4095 On the Web at: www.progress.com
Find us on
facebook.com/progresssw
twitter.com/progresssw
youtube.com/progresssw
For regional international office locations and contact information, please go to www.progress.com/worldwide
Progress, Corticon and OpenEdge are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation or one of its affiliates or subsidiaries in the U.S. and other
countries. Any other marks contained herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. Specifications subject to change without notice.
© 2014 Progress Software Corporation and/or its subsidiaries or affiliates. All rights reserved.
Rev. 03/14 | 140318-0069
www.progress.com