Canadian Tradex
Organizer of trade show events and publisher of specialty guides for the logging, forestry, and mining industries organizes its efforts with FileMaker Pro
Behind every successful trade show, behind every well-thumbed
industrial directory, there's a hard-working promotional company
that's labored to put it all together. Canadian Tradex of Timmins,
Ontario does that job for the Canadian forest industry – organizing
two major trade expositions each year, along with a series of
quarterly directories for the forestry and mining industries and
FileMaker Pro is the indispensable behind-the-scenes tool that
makes it all happen.
Business Challenge
Preparing world-class events for demanding clients, and assembling
detailed, accurate industrial directories is a difficult,
labor-intensive task under any circumstances. But it becomes even
more challenging when the task is undertaken by a workforce of just
five people. And this is especially true when the job involves
everything from initial client contacts to scheduling to booking
venues to page composition to overseeing the finished project to
invoicing when it's all over. "Without FileMaker Pro our
directories and show guides would have been impossible to produce,"
comments National Marketing Director, John Cornelsen. "FileMaker
Pro turned it into an easy chore – making us competitive and able
to react to the many special needs of our company."
Successful Solution
Glenn Dredhart, President of Canadian Tradex began using FileMaker
Pro back in the mid-1980s, preparing databases to organize and
coordinate directory preparation, client contacts, marketing, show
management, and invoicing. The upgrade to FileMaker Pro 7 began
integrating these databases, a process which continues now with the
new FileMaker Pro 8. At present, the system consists of a single
database tracking sales and invoicing, with additional specialized
databases focused on specific industries. The databases contain
thousands of individual entries, with the number of records
expected to take a sharp spike upward as plans move ahead to
provide access over the web.
Customer Benefits
FileMaker Pro allows Tradex's small staff to greatly step up its
productivity, simplifying complex tasks and greatly streamlining
routine office functions. "With a small staff, FileMaker Pro
automates our invoicing and marketing," Dredhart notes, "allowing
more time to develop our directories and provide additional
services to our clients – such as using our databases on the
Internet to assist our clients in marketing their own products." "
The bottom line," adds the president," this frees me to to what I
do best, spend time with my major clients and sell, sell, sell!"
Cornelsen, assigned the task to pave the road for future growth,
chimes in. "The continuing profitability of our company is
dependent on how smoothly and quickly we can adapt our services to
the internet." Web access to the database system is a current
development priority, and with FileMaker Pro 8's Instant Web
Publishing feature, this process will be greatly expedited. "We can
do it with Instant Web Publishing under our current staffing
budget," John predicts. "We can publish our basic web services to
the Internet, and add on as we go. In this way, each component will
generate money as we go, making a large initial investment or
waiting period unnecessary." "The best part of all this", adds the
marketing director, " using Filemaker Pro 8 Instant Web Publishing
gives us in-house control of what appears on our web sites. We can
use our own graphic software and artists from our publishing
division, making professional-looking changes on our site at will
rather than waiting for days or weeks."
Multi-Platform Advantages
"Imagine my delight to discover that Filemaker Pro 8 can be
installed on both the PC platform and Mac from the same install
disk." says the marketing director, " Most offices use both
machines these days and the ability to transfer or network
Filemaker data bases and files to any platform makes life much
simpler." FileMaker Pro 8's Excel Maker and PDF Maker features will
also mean real efficiencies around the office for John's staff.
"Being able to create Excel files in FileMaker Pro 8 is handy for
our PC guys, who have Microsoft hardware and are comfortable with
it," John says. And in the daily routine of contact management,
FileMaker Pro 8 stands alone for its ease of use and rapid access
to needed data. "We've never tried any other contact software,"
John continues. "Who needs to? Who can match the ease of use, the
ability to design new solutions, and user-friendliness of FileMaker
Pro! It's almost like a real person – a confidant in achieving our
goals."
"Who can match the ease of use, the ability to design new solutions, and user-friendliness of FileMaker Pro! It's almost like a real person – a confidant in achieving our goals."
John Cornelsen, National Marketing Director, Canadian Tradex
Contact information
Contact Info for Customer:
John Cornelsen
National Marketing Director
National Marketing Director
1-705-264-2251
jaycor@onlink.net
http://www.woodtech.net
Filemaker Contact:
Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com
