How does Visual Shop compare?

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A business model spells out how a company makes money. It is the method of doing business by which a company can generate revenue. CSI's customers which consist of; heat treaters, finishers, & coaters fall under a general business model of "Process oriented Job Shops". Further defined as companies that receive customer's parts, perform a process on them, and send those parts back to the customer.

It is also must be understood that each company that falls under this broad definition has created a unique business model for itself as each company; serves different markets, operates under different environments, performs different processes, work volumes, different types of parts, and a multitude of other factors that make each business unique.

You want to find software that closely fits your business model. Buying anything else just doesn't work or makes you run your business in a way that decreases efficiency and ultimately raises costs.

The closer the software fits your business, the greater the benefits will be.

At a minimum the software must be designed for "Process Oriented Job Shops".

CSI has two types of competitors.

The first is the larger software companies that specialize in job shop manufacturing. Examples are; Job Boss, Vista, E2, and Visual Job shop. While these companies say that they do all types of job shops, their primary market is the contract manufacturing job shop. They all talk about contract manufacturing and then mention other types of job shops. The reason is simple, the contract manufacturing market is huge while the market that CSI serves consists of about 3000 companies.

Their business model is: "An organization that makes products under contract for other companies." If this is what you do, then this software is for you.

Obviously these companies would love to sell you their software. And of course they claim that it will work perfectly for you. But just look at how they define their product.

The following quotes were taken from the main web page of each software product on 09/13/2007.

Job Boss.
"JobBOSS is the most widely used job shop software designed specifically for job shops, custom manufacturers..."

E2.
"The E2 Shop System shop manufacturing software is the NUMBER ONE job shop software package..."

Vista.
"Epicor® Vista™ is a world-class, integrated manufacturing and accounting solution for emerging manufacturers, job shops or make-to-order departments of large enterprises."

Visual Jobshop.
"As a small manufacturer, you want tools that allow you to integrate quoting, order entry, inventory..."

Ask yourself these questions;
Do you manufacture pats? Does this fit your business model? Is this software designed for you? Are you the type of company that they design their software for? Who are the majority of their customers.

So what is the difference between Visual Shop and the others?

Visual Shop is designed for your business model, we know your specific industry, and we are more then just software. We can show you and help you make your company more efficient. Software is only a tool. It's how you implement the tool and how you take advantage of its capabilities that determines the return on your investment. To put it simply, we have worked with hundreds of companies that are in the same business as you. We know what works, we know what doesn't. We know and understand your business. It is what we do. If we didn't sell software we could probably become efficiency experts. Check out our management link to see the experience we have.

The second type of competitor is the smaller company that sells software specifically to platers, coaters, or heat treaters. Many of these companies come and go. The last recession wiped out several of them. Some of them go after the smaller companies. Some of them are one man shops. A lot of them don't have the resources to ride out bad times. Many of them can't provide the services necessary to maintain a system over time.

Most of them don't fully understand the customer's needs. They don't have the industry experience.

The market that we serve is limited to only about 3,000 shops nationwide. It is a conservative market. Often they will purchase a computer and use it for well over 10 years. There is not a lot of new systems being sold on any given year. It is a low volume market. This makes it difficult for newcomers to survive.

At CSI, we have a built up an installed base of over 300 sites. Each company pays us annually for support and upgrades. The amount they pay is based on the size of the system they purchase. Several of our customers are the largest in the industry. These fees along with other services that we provide allows us to maintain our staff, continuously improve our product, and provide the services that our customers demand. We can support all this without any new sales. We are a profitable company.

However, we don't believe in sitting back and enjoying our success. Our goal is to continue to improve out product and increase our market share.

One final note, we have several companies that have switched to Visual Shop from each of the software packages mentioned above. Here are some customers that had other software packages.

"It saved us. With our other heat-treating software, we were going crazy with it. Visual Shop worked well from the start. Best software around. "Dependable, provides useful information. Excellent customer support." Rick, Progressive Steel Treating.

"You made our life easy. Our prior software and the software before that was hard to use, slow and incomplete. Visual Shop is easy to use, fast and has everything you need for platers. Thanks for developing the best software in the business." George, Gatto Industrial Platers, Inc.