How Anvil Helped Hutson, Inc. Scale Operations

Unify Far-Flung Locations 

With the new locations hundreds of miles away, Kautzman explained that the dealership needed a single system to unify the locations. Anvil’s cloud-based framework checks all their requirements: 

• Consolidates information from all locations 
• Serves the same information back out to all the locations
• Creates easy navigation to access information and processes
• Returns information quickly, ensuring work continues to move forward
• Standardizes processes across the dealership 

The final point was of particular concern to Kautzman. “If you start operating in silos, you lose cohesiveness and communication breaks down as locations create their own way of doing things,” he says. “From the sales folks all the way to accounting, as they settle off pieces of equipment, everybody has access to Anvil, and they can see what is happening without having to chase around.” 

That level of transparency has transformed the dealership, he relates. “When you put tasks and requests into the system you can watch it to see its progress.” Anvil gives you visibility to: 

• See when equipment arrives at the dealership
• See when equipment enters the shop
• See when the work is complete
• See when delivery is scheduled
• See when it has been delivered

The bottom line is that Anvil keeps everyone across the dealership informed. That results in better customer service, which keeps them coming back to fulfill future equipment and service needs. 

Increase Volume Faster than Staffers 

According to Kautzman, Hutson’s initial focus when bringing Anvil into the growing dealership was on support operations. “We wanted to get our back-office processes running properly, first: Inventory look-up, trade assessments, etc.,” he says. “Not adding any headcount in these areas after the acquisition was important to our senior leadership. We needed to do more with the people we had in place, and we could do that with Anvil.” 

For example, Hutson employed two full-time staff members to handle trade assessments, with another available half-time when they had a backlog of work. Before Anvil, the team maxed out just above 500 assessments each month. Using Anvil, they operate smoothly at a post-acquisition rate of 1,000 assessments each month. And Kautzman claims the staff’s current ceiling is more like 1,500 to 1,600 assessments.  

“Anvil makes us more efficient. We haven’t added any support headcount and we are keeping up, doing all the same things that we were doing before.”

Mobile: The Competitive Answer 

Another result of the acquisition is increased competition between sales reps. “Particularly in the current conditions where things are not on the lot very long,” says Kautzman.

The cloud-based nature and automation capability of Anvil Enterprise helps keep everyone on the same page, by: 

• Allowing inventory searches at any location on mobile devices
• Pushing out real-time notifications of new inventory, holds, and newly sold equipment
• Initiating ‘Marked Sold’ within seconds of confirming a deal
• Ordering parts, service, or transportation from wherever it’s needed

 Particularly for the reps, mobile access provides an advantage. “As fast as things are selling today, three minutes can make a difference,” he says. “Somebody else could sell it when you have 50 or 60 sales reps with their fingers in the inventory. You mark it sold and it is a done deal. Right there. And you don’t have to worry about your customer losing out.” 

“It’s allowed my team to keep their sanity and manage their stress levels. Now they can see what’s in front of them and just keep working through the list. Anvil has been key in helping us make better decisions.”

Duane Kautzman 

How Can Anvil Help You Grow? 

From the moment they began installation, the Anvil onboarding team showed that they were in-tune to Hutson’s scalability needs. “They were very good at pointing out areas where our process needed more thought,” says Kautzman. “They’d tell us, ‘Here’s what might work today, but down the road if you add more locations, here’s what could happen.’” 

Overall, Kautzman can’t imagine going back to the way things were. “Anvil is making us more efficient, and the Anvil team was great at making those suggestions that make the system able to grow with us,” he says. “That’s the big one.”