- Status: Active
- Customer since: 09/04/2024
- somes-nick.com
- Case Study Filed: 12/2025
Table of Contents
Our client, a historic manufacturer’s representative firm established in 1952, was facing a modern crisis: the volume of business was outpacing their IT infrastructure. While Somes-Nick & Company had successfully transitioned from pure sales representation to a stocking distributor model for steam turbines and industrial valves, their backend relied on disconnected spreadsheets and a legacy desktop accounting system. To tame this “fire hose” of demand and modernize their complex pricing logic, Rob Nick, President, engaged United Parts of Chicago to architect a unified operating system using Zoho One applications.
Overview
For a firm operating since the days of slide rules and paper ledgers, processes often ossify around the tools available at the time. As the decades passed, Somes-Nick accumulated layers of operational habits—manual quoting, paper-based filing, and later, disconnected spreadsheets—that persisted even as the volume and velocity of business increased. By 2024, the business moved from downtown Chicago to a warehouse-capable facility in Elk Grove Village, fundamentally shifting its business model from pure sales representation to a stocking distributor model. This physical move exposed the limitations of their digital infrastructure; managing a physical inventory of high-value valves and regulators requires a level of precision that manual spreadsheets simply cannot provide.
Executive Summary
Industry: Industrial Distribution & Manufacturing Representation
Rob Nick
Gus Nick
Sandy Irmen
Problem Statement and Key Challenges
The key pain point for Somes-Nick was the rigidity of their legacy systems amid rapid growth. The firm manages over 25,000 unique SKUs, ranging from tiny gaskets to massive steam turbine assemblies. Managing this inventory and the associated complex pricing and fulfillment logic—where costs are determined by variable “multipliers” applied to a manufacturer’s list price—was handled mainly in spreadsheets.
As Rob Nick described, the incoming business was like “drinking from a fire hose.” The manual workflow for quoting was error-prone and slow; finding a price often meant cross-referencing three different spreadsheets or physically checking the warehouse. Furthermore, their financial data in QuickBooks Desktop had accumulated years of “artifacts,” making it unreliable for real-time decision-making.
"This is already from a fire hose for us... we don't want to start in this amorphous huge project... we just want to do it in bite-sized pieces.”
Problem Evaluation
The root issue was data fragmentation. The “truth” about inventory availability lived in one place, pricing logic in another (or in employees’ heads), and customer history in a third. It wasn’t just a “new software” case; they needed a “fresh start” to purge bad legacy data and a system that could automate their unique business logic.
Proposed Solution
The proposed solution was a surgical, “Fresh Start” implementation of the Zoho One suite. Rather than migrating years of potentially corrupted legacy accounting data, the Somes-Nick leadership team made a bold decision to launch a clean financial instance. The architecture focused on centralizing the 25,000 SKU catalog in Zoho Inventory and automating pricing logic, ensuring the sales team could generate accurate quotes instantly without manual calculations.
The sheer number of Zoho One applications enabled the incorporation of other key components that the client’s semi-manual platform lacked: CRM (Zoho CRM) and an internal communication platform (Zoho Cliq).
The Zoho One architecture has been planned with future EDI integration for large vendors and customers in mind.
| Business Function | Before: Disparate Application Environment | After: Unified Zoho Ecosystem |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Logic | Manual Excel lookups applying complex formulas and lookups to list prices. High error risk. | Zoho Inventory Price Lists: Automated application of any price logic the client's team wants. Zero error risk. |
| Inventory Management | Disconnected spreadsheets; reliance on physical warehouse checks ("Ghost Inventory"). | Zoho Inventory: Real-time visibility of 25,000+ SKUs with composite item tracking for repair kits. |
| Internal Communication | Third-party applications disconnected from client data. | Zoho Cliq: Contextual chat integrated directly into CRM records. |
| Quoting Process | High latency; required checking multiple sources or calling the factory for prices. | Zoho CRM + Zoho Inventory: : Instant quoting with automated pricing, accessible from mobile devices. |
| Financials | Legacy QuickBooks Desktop with cluttered historical data. | Zoho Books: A "Fresh Start" implementation with a clean Chart of Accounts and verified opening balances. |
| Sales Workflow | Inbox-driven; leads often slipped through cracks during high volume. | Zoho CRM: Automated lead intake and pipeline tracking specifically designed for industrial sales cycles. |
| Reporting | Semi-manual: Excel-based + QuickBooks Desktop reports. | Zoho Analytics: Automated custom reports with the data transformation on the Zoho Analytics'side. |
Core Zoho Applications Deployed
Zoho Implementation
- Zoho CRM: Configured with a custom pipeline in the “Deals” module and integrated natively with Zoho Inventory to give sales reps real-time visibility into stock levels and pricing while on client calls. The custom “Assets” module handles the customer assets tracking and service history.
- Zoho Finance (Zoho Books and Zoho Inventory): Instead of a complex migration, the team executed a “Fresh Start” strategy. A new, optimized Chart of Accounts was built, and the system went live with clean opening balances, leaving legacy errors behind.
- Zoho Analytics: According to the client’s requirements, the United Parts of Chicago team created multiple reports in Zoho Analytics that were not existing in Zoho Finance. Many of them are using intermittent calculations and complex SQL queries built in Zoho Analytics.
- Zoho Cliq: A company-wide communication tool, available for all the client’s users; also serves as a logger for recording the automated actions.
- Zoho Flow: a trigger-based integration engine for the custom interapplication logic.
In complete alignment with the client’s intention to execute the project “in pieces” and our Lean Agile approach, we run a series of sprints, culminating in an SLA upon completion. Later, another project was launched to create a custom EDI integration with TrueCommerce for high-volume customers.
"Moving to a cloud-based accounting system has allowed better visibility to the quotes and orders and follow up with new customers and customers whose orders have dropped off. It also allowed us to build a database of PN, descriptions, and prices improving our quoting and ordering accuracy.”
" I would say that by far, my biggest time-saver is that the guys are entering their own orders.”
Results
-
Faster Sales
The immediate impact was the stabilization of the sales intake process. By automating lead management, quoting, and pricing, our client could handle the high volume of incoming requests without adding administrative headcount. -
Elimination of Pricing Errors
The automation of the price modifiers was a game-changer. Sales reps no longer need to manually calculate margins, reference static spreadsheets, or ask for help. The system enforces the correct pricing automatically. -
Mobile Sales Enablement
For the first time, the sales team has full access to inventory and customer data in the field via the Zoho mobile apps, allowing them to answer stock questions instantly regardless of their location, whether it’s Somes-Nick’s welcoming office, a power plant, or a noisy industrial facility. -
Knowledge is Power: Powerful BI and Reporting
Zoho Analytics brought the knowledge and confidence to all levels of the company’s chain of command. Custom reports with individual access and scheduling run 24×7, providing the necessary BI when and where needed.
"We appreciated United Parts of Chicago ability to quickly close projects as they arrive. This allowed us to switch ERP systems from an outdated desktop application to a cloud-based system without any downtime or disruptions with our customer base.”
Bottom Line: Complexity Requires Clean Architecture
Somes-Nick & Company proves that even heritage industries with complex, non-standard pricing models can modernize effectively. The key was the courage to adopt a “Fresh Start” approach. By refusing to drag the “anchors” of legacy data into the new system, they achieved a lean, scalable operational foundation in a single sprint, backed up by the subsequent SLA and on-demand, pinpointed modifications.
If you are ready to stop fighting your legacy spreadsheets and start scaling, we are ready to help.