The following profile was compiled from an interview with Ara Surenian, founder and President of Cadent Resources, Inc. Read on to learn how he is using technology to generate revenue.

Get some valuable advice and the recipe to this business’ Secret Sauce!

The Business

Cadent Resources, Inc. drives speed and profit at manufacturing and distribution companies by optimizing supply and demand. Our LeanFacility Supply Management Solution eliminates operating waste to increase the speed production and fulfillment. Our DemandCaster Demand Management Solution assures the right amount of inventory and capacity is available at the right time.

The Tools

We have added a new service called DemandCaster. It is an outsourced demand management service built as a SwaS* (Software with a Service) application with a dedicated virtual demand analyst assigned to the client to perform analysis and drive improvement. My hope is that this will become our primary revenue stream and will supplant the traditional consulting services we provide.

The Users

The users are typically operations type personnel such as materials, production, and operations managers and their reports.

The Challenge

The biggest challenge is the extraction of the data from the clients ERP system. It is this data that the system uses to do its analysis. We have not found a magic bullet but have learned that the best way to get data is to use the IT person or company the client company already works with. Typically these individuals are trusted and provide the client custom reports and other system related services and can extract the data we need quickly and reliably. They can also help us automate the extraction to assure we are able to get data when needed. They may also become a partner in identifying new prospects that can benefit from the service we provide.

The Future

The future business will be a technology driven company and the services we provide must be reliable and must achieve results simply yet robustly. The trick will be to find the balance between being technology driven and efficient and not losing the human touch and intelligence. This is critical in order to prevent our service from being commoditized which is an issue in wholly technology driven solutions.

The Advice

Talk to and work with people that know technology and can provide advice and services that will help you move forward at a cost you can afford. You can do quite a bit with not a lot of dollars so don’t be afraid to take the plunge for fear of making mistakes. The fact is mistakes will be made but the beauty of technology is that the cost to fix errors is not prohibitive and often mistakes will yield a better result. Also, don’t be afraid to start testing before the solution is perfect. It will never be perfect. Just be careful that an initial launch be performed in a controlled environment so if there are problems only the control group is affected.

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About Ara Surenian

Ara Surenian, the founder and President of Cadent Resources Inc., has more than 20 years of experience in management, operations, and engineering. His specialty is designing and implementing business processes that blend lean manufacturing, supply chain management, and business intelligence to significantly improve a company’s cash flow and profit.

Ara is an advisor to business owners and is a seasoned and storied presenter at professional associations, executive roundtables, and seminars. He is a member of APICS, The Association for Operations Management, the Institute of Business Forecasting, the Institute of Management Consultants, and a Trusted Advisor member of Vistage an international organization for CEO’s. Ara has an MBA with a specialization in Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management from the University of Illinois, and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston.

* Please note: This entry originally referred to the DemandCaster as a SaaS application, but has been corrected to “SwaS” to reflect the true nature of the software.

The reason this is important is because SaaS solutions are typically hosted subscription based solutions that are available to users to use as if it was software loaded on their servers or desktop. The distinction with DemandCaster is that it benefits from all that traditional SaaS applications provide but acts as an enabler to allow the deployment of an actual service offering that is provided by a dedicated expert. This differs from another software category called Software plus Services which is a wholly software-centric solution.  SwaS does not apply to a business that uses software to simply supplement their core business such as banks, brokers, on-line retailers, and credit card companies.  A SwaS provider works in the business to business realm and uses the hosted software as an enabler to facilitate communication, analysis, and delivery to address a specific need of a client company.