When competing in a niche market, every little bit helps. While the national home improvement stores seem to dominate the marketplace, a second tier of hardware chains exists, and the competition is at times more fierce among them than among the big guys. Do it Best Corp. is one of those players, but garners a sizable marketshare. The company is a full-service, full-line, hardware and building materials buying cooperative whose global member stores are all independently owned. Each store is serviced from one of the seven Do it Best Corp. distribution centers around the United States. The 4,200 member-retailers worldwide have joined together as part of the Do it Best Corp. cooperative to buy in large volume in an effort to offer lower prices to their customers. Under this business structure, sales reached $2.423 billion for the corporation in 2003.

By far, Do it Best Corp. provides its member retailers with competitive upfront pricing and support programs to help them grow their business—including advertising, merchandising and store design programs. It appeared that in order for executives at Do it Best Corp. to remain one step ahead of the competition, they had to advance their network connectivity. With most of these applications being driven over the Internet —and with the constant interaction between the co-op stores and headquarters, a satellite network was established to offer secure, on-demand connectivity service. Kay Williams, vice president of information technology for Do it Best Corp., recently talked to Satellite Business Solutions magazine and shared how satellite technology fulfills the need for seamless and secure communications throughout the member stores.

Kay Williams
Vice President, Information Technology,
Do it Best Corp.

Problem:
Exchange proprietary content to maintain leadership in a market.

The Do it Best Corp. members are located all across the country, with many not always served by terrestrial connectivity such as with DSL. Because of this connectivity challenge, store owners needing to securely transfer files such as inventory, pricing updates and other proprietary information were not always able to do so in a timely manner. Member retailers were transmitting much of this data over the Internet and dial-up simply was no longer efficient.

“It is important to have broadband access,” says Williams. “The solution we were seeking needed to provide a seamless, secure transfer of information to and from all locations, including the most remote stores, as well as product maintenance sites.”

Solution:
Connect the stores with a satellite network.

Do it Best Corp. launched its satellite network in 2002, connecting 370 of its stores with each other and headquarters. Managed by Spacenet, the network is used in part for credit card processing yielding a response time of about four-to-six seconds versus the 40 seconds with a dial-up connection.

It also provides the stores with Internet access, in-store music and communications with headquarters or others throughout the cooperative. In addition, the satellite network is tailored to every store’s need, offering a secure communications infrastructure. “The integration was not

a cookie-cutter operation,” says Williams. “Given the uniqueness in needs and location, each store was catered to individually with the establishment of the network.”

In terms of savings, the satellite connection turned out to be a significant factor for Do it Best. “One of our largest stores has been saving about $80,000 per year with the satellite network in place,” adds Williams.

The corporation has been pleased with the benefits that the satellite connection has provided to their member retailers and sees continued growth in this area.