Interview with Vic Watson
CEO of DSI Solutions

Who is DSI and what do you do?
DSI is a software supplier to the commercial vehicle industry. Our customers are primarily retailers and repair companies for trucks, trailers, tractors, and other heavy equipment. Customers use our DSI business management software to manage nearly every aspect of their operations, including accounting, parts and inventory management, point of sale, and repair order management, as well as leasing and rentals.

What were some of the challenges with your previous MultiValue system?
Our DSI software had been running on Pick for years. Our main problem was that Pick wasn’t able to keep up with the needs of our customers. Prices were rising but we weren’t seeing a lot of product development. Customers often had issues with the old license manager and the general stability of the product. Multi-day outages were common, and our customers were fed up with having to pay high annual maintenance fees on unreliable systems. It was a frustrating situation with no real end in sight.

What attracted you to OpenQM and Zumasys?
Our history with Zumasys goes way back—my business partner and Paul Giobbi have known each other for years. We’re also long-time AccuTerm users, and have been Zumasys customers since AccuTerm was acquired by Zumasys a few years ago. We started to think about moving to OpenQM, but we didn’t quite have the bandwidth to take on the task by ourselves. We wanted to be confident that we could provide a smooth transition for our 6,000+ users. When Zumasys became an OpenQM distributor, we knew we had a partner we could trust to deliver a stable, supported solution. They provide a lot of resources that we wouldn’t have if we implemented OpenQM on our own. And Zumasys is continuing to invest in OpenQM, so we are seeing regular improvements that we can use to build a better product for our customers.

The cost savings and performance improvements of OpenQM enable us to be much more competitive with companies using less-expensive databases. With OpenQM, it costs 50% less to add users, so our customers can scale more affordable. When we buy licenses, we don’t have to pass that cost on to our customers since it’s part of the regular maintenance fee. Because OpenQM runs the database without using a Virtual Machine Environment (VME), operations also run much faster.

What was the migration to OpenQM like?
Transitioning IT systems is like changing your foundation. You’ve got to lift the entire house up, pour new concrete, and put it back down. If the bolts aren’t all in the right place, you’re going to have problems. We had regular meetings with the Zumasys Project Management Team and our programmers to make sure all those bolts were lined up.

Zumasys really did everything possible to make sure our concerns were addressed so that the transition was seamless to our users. We were all on the same team, doing the same work to accomplish the same goal. Even though it seemed like a monumental task, it really wasn’t that big of a deal on the technical side.

What are some of the benefits of OpenQM to your business and your customers?
Everything we were hoping for with OpenQM has come to pass. We’ve been able to deliver all the benefits of the cloud in a cost-effective way for our customers. The quality of the product from Zumasys is phenomenally stable. It’s practically bulletproof. And we didn’t have to wait for our investment to start paying off—we started seeing ROI within 12 months of implementing the product. The best part is, our customers get a faster, more stable product, and it didn’t cost them a penny more. That makes them happy. Zumasys has been a great partner for us. We were really impressed with Zumasys’ website and marketing, and they offered to help us improve in those areas. They relaunched our website and helped us create some fantastic branded content. We’ve sold new systems just because of our new website, and we’re getting regular contacts through the website all the time. I’ve even had compliments from my competition. I appreciate that Zumasys is so focused on our success.