Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/128820
Projects The numbers compiled by AutoQuotes speaks volumes about the activity in our industry. For example, more than 7,500 new projects are created in AutoQuotes every day and more than $30 billion in products are quoted every year. Users have created over 12 million projects that have been securely maintained for more than a decade. This is a big multiple of the actual $6-8 billion in annual revenues generated by the E&S industry. Yes, the dollar totals in AutoQuotes are quotes and budgets, not yet sales. But these totals are valid indicators of how much information passes through the channel on a daily basis, how many times a project iterates and is rendered at different levels, and how much effort is necessary in the channel for a kitchen to move from schematic design to final completion. Working a major project through the channel requires multiple 'mini-projects' at each level— consultant, multiple reps, multiple manufacturers, and a dealer. "AutoQuotes is an essential tool to any manufacturer in the foodservice industry. It's extremely easy to use, it's incredibly accurate, and what we like is the fact that we have some controllability over the content that is put into the AutoQuotes content. …It is the resource for our seller organization, our dealer partners, and consultants." Joe Maresca, Vulcan Content AutoQuotes hosts products from 620 E&S manufacturers.The catalog includes 552,000 models with specifications, list prices, brands, configurations, and physical characteristics. There are 393,429 product pictures, including single shots, and many group shots for tabletop items. For equipment items, there are 248,685 spec sheets. Along the same lines, product content continues to expand. For smallwares items, there are now 114,729 PDF pages from printed catalogs. For the design community, AutoQuotes has 143,745 CAD symbols and Revit families in the catalog. Media content now includes owner manuals, brochures, product videos, and other assorted documents. There is no limit to online content and changes can be updated in real time. Visibility of content is managed so that manufacturers can present products selectively to the correct users. Some manufacturers have multiple price lists: a USA price list, a Canadian price list, a UK price list. Some buying groups have exclusive manufacturers or brands. And users can add their stock models and their local manufacturers to the catalog. Manufacturers are now the fastest growing percentage of new users in the AutoQuotes community. By quoting with AutoQuotes, they deliver quotes that are compatible with every level of the channel, and by working with their own content, they are better aware of how their products present themselves in the online marketplace. "AutoQuotes has completely made our industry more efficient. Right now, we could not do what we have to do without the technology of AutoQuotes, which provides our people all of the pricing, cutsheets, and availability of discounts all in one place. AutoQuotes is the technology that powers." Fred Singer, Singer Equipment Company. Dealers Over 70 percent of AutoQuotes subscribers are dealers. Dealers create more than one million AutoQuotes projects per year and FEDA members represent 80 percent of the dealer volume of quoting. Consequently, dealer training is vital to keep the community of 17,000 dealer users in step with the progressive changes to AutoQuotes. We schedule a variety of webinars each week,one hour of training on specific levels of AutoQuotes, plus up to one hour for questions, answers and discussion. There are webinars for beginners and for advanced users, as well as webinars for Administrators—the group responsible for setting companywide standards and controlling multiple users and multiple locations.We also offer webinars in Spanish to teach our Spanish version and have roundtable discussions on the new AutoQuotes Designer and Revit families. Since we began the webinar training campaign, we have educated more than 7,000 users and the demand continues to increase. Currently, we have 150 to 200 participants per week. But for those who cannot participate, all the webinars are recorded and available to view on the "Videos" page of the AutoQuotes website. Scheduled webinars are listed under FREE Webinars. AutoQuotes provides FEDA dealers management controls and online visibility of all users all the time. Here are a few examples of Admin features. The FEDA Export.The FEDA Export is exclusive to FEDA members. It permits FEDA members to export all the models into a file that includes model numbers, specs, product characteristics and pictures. FEDA members can use the export to update list prices in their inventory or update their websites with pricing, specs, spec sheets, and pictures. Sharing. Specify users who can share projects online with other users. • Mfr Setup. Set discounts,specify preferred manufacturers, setup email connections to reps and manufacturers to continued on page 12 May/Jun e 201 3 1 1