Software services are an integral part of our lives these days. Whether we're using Yelp to find a restaurant, Uber to get us across town, or Expedia to book a flight, it's hard to imagine life without these modern tools.
These innovations enrich our lives, make us more productive, and entertain us. Yet, when you ask dealers to talk about software in our industry, the conversation usually ends up with tales of frustration or complaint. There just isn’t that one special tool that everybody uses and truly enjoys. Sure, everyone uses QuickBooks, but there isn’t much fun about accounting software, at least not for most dealers.
Recently though, there has been a lot of industry buzz about a new, free service for integrators called Portal (formerly SupplyStream).
On the surface, the Portal concept is quite simple: It’s just a website where all dealers’ products (and pricing) are organized into a “super-catalog”, if you will, where you can create proposals and send purchase orders to vendors.
So what’s the big deal? There are other tools available to dealers that do similar things, right? That may be true, but something sets Portal apart, and it’s not just because it’s “free”. For some reason, dealers are actually saying that they “love it”. So we decided to sit down with a couple integrators, turn on a camera, and find out what’s really going on. What is it about this software that makes it so different? Here are their stories…
Buddy Hughes
Crown Audio Video – Dallas, TX
Brad & Sheri Griffin
Home Theater Design Group – Addison, TX
Decide for yourself at www.portal.io.
