Wheels, Inc. adds capabilities to online tool

By Susan Avery -- Purchasing, 10/24/2007 12:17:00 PM

Wheels, Inc., a fleet leasing company in Des Plaines, Ill., has built new capabilities for developing and storing custom vehicle specs and quotes in its FleetView online fleet management tool. With the tool, users order vehicles and make changes to driver data. It also provides access to fleet information and reports.

"Customers wanted the ability to share information on changes in pricing or manufacturer specs with others in their organizations since most quotes are generated for one-off vehicle requests and require approval at additional organizational levels," says Sheryl Sawyer, director of vehicle acquisitions at Wheels.

Wheels developed the new quote capability to follow the same flow as the ordering process. There is no requirement to decide upfront whether the customer is building a quote or actually placing an order since either function is supported at any point in the process. And, each time a saved quote is accessed, a comparison to the previous quote which includes any changes in price or options along with a side-by-side view of the changes is automatically generated. The overall design means a quote can be transformed into a real order and vehicle specs and price sheet can be emailed to any stakeholders directly from the Wheels system.

"While our sourcing group is primarily responsible for procuring vehicles, it is nearly always a collaborative decision between our area and the business owners," says Tim Stroup, senior commodity agent, procurement shared services at MDU Resources Group, Inc. in Bismarck, N.D. "With the quoting tool, we are able to build quotes while we are communicating by phone with the business owners and we can email them quotes directly from the application.” MDU Resources provides natural resource products and services.