Data Informed, Buyer Centric
The Way Buying Lumber Should Be
BuyMetrics® cloud-based purchasing platform encompasses a whole toolbox of easy to use software solutions, each custom-built to bring the power of data to the ever-changing, fluid dynamics of real-world commodity procurement. The easy-to-deploy subscription service delivers: (1) immediate efficiency savings - driven by online connectivity, automated workflows; and (2) sustained effectiveness savings - driven by the data, tools and context-specific information buyers need to measure spot market and program buys, optimize outcomes, systematically hone strategy.
Market proven. BuyMetrics leads the industry in the online sourcing of commodity wood products, automated price discovery, and bid/quote evaluation. For more than 22 years, BUYERS at pro dealers and component manufacturers (large and small) have relied on BuyMetrics to protect/enhance volatile commodity margins (drive ROI) while streamlining purchase processes. BuyMetrics is buying the way YOU want it to be – empowered – on your terms, in your control, using innovative technology that works for YOU. We measure our performance by YOUR success.
With a reputation for deep industry expertise and rock solid performance,
BuyMetrics’ clients (and their vendors) are our best spokespersons.
What makes BuyMetrics unique?
1. We serve BUYERS. (‘He who pays the piper, calls the tune’) BuyMetrics’ Founder knew: where commodities/standardized products could be readily identified in the marketplace, the BUYER could control the purchase interface and leverage the derived market knowledge.
2. Award-winning technology, robust (granular) data management. While all online procurement solutions use the Internet to efficiently gather quotes (move digital data from point A to point B), BuyMetrics’ value goes beyond connectivity to CLARITY, delivering the context-specific information you need to consistently make the right purchase. BuyMetrics is all about data, the leading-edge technology required to harness it, the tools commodity buyers need to leverage it.
3. BuyMetrics transforms commodity procurement into a core business process, measurable, manageable, teachable (learnable). With BuyMetrics the value of your commodity data doesn’t end with the purchase. Market information derived from your shops is available to inform the commodity’s entire ‘turn & earn’ cycle – the levers of net profit on sales. 360° Metrics provide corporate decision-makers with the actionable insight they need to measure purchase performance, enhance your company’s price-setting/bid processes, model alternate go-to-market strategies – the information required to systemically improve the purchasing, pricing, and profit earned on your inventory (ROI).
4. Staying power. For decades -- through every market cycle of the 21st century -- BuyMetrics has helped clients achieve outsized returns on commodities. We’ve quietly grown our business the old-fashioned way – by earning it -- year after year since 2000. Zero venture funding. Zero hype. Just results.
Discover, Evaluate, Learn
Knowledge: A Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Historically lumber buyers have been price takers – ‘the market sets the price’.
In economic theory, price is at the intersection of the supply and demand curves. At the level of real-world transactions (data points on curve) price discovery is contact sport – immediate, dynamic, decisive. BuyMetrics was purpose-built to identify opportunity, to level the market-knowledge advantage long held by sellers, to shift control of the transaction to the buyer.
Automated Workflows Save Time; Data-Informed Purchases Save $$$
For the lumber buyer, BuyMetrics is like having a full-time buying assistant collecting data, crunching the numbers, and keeping up with data entry. Giving you a clear view of available product and price – in minutes.
Extremely Flexible: Each user configures BuyMetrics the way he/she wants it to work. Over the years, BuyMetrics has automated many processes commonly used by experienced lumber/panels buyers – just no two in the exact same way! More than customized UI, BuyMetrics enables customized results. Constraining business rules are deliberately absent.
QuotePad™: BuyMetrics’ signature QuotePad enables buyers to quickly and precisely review their RFQ responses in a single, continuously updated, scored/ranked array that scrolls horizontally across the buyer’s screen. Importantly, BuyMetrics’ proprietary technology enables the buyer to move beyond “price” to “value”. BuyMetrics ENTERPRISE edition automatically produces context-specific market metrics, evaluates/scores each item and each offer, and dynamically updates/displays the competing offers in ranked order. Notifying the winning vendor(s) happens with one-click. Most Enterprise users have automated back-office/ERP system integration, no re-keying required.
BuyMetrics Shifts Efficiency/Effectiveness Curve
Efficiency: Automated workflow breaks the fundamental limitation in
traditional buying: the number of buyer/vendor interactions that can occur in an
8-hour day.
Effectiveness: Buying processes become visible, measurable, teachable.
Buying capacity expands, market coverage widens, price discovery improves, CoG goes
down. Context specific market measures inform purchase decisions. Intuitive, point &
click interface empowers you to measure performance (on-the-fly), hone strategy,
systematically improve outcomes.
Longtime users take for granted the ability to quickly and precisely manage their purchases -- oblivious to the volumes of data required to process and evaluate every item/offer, dynamically rank RFQ responses -- they know it’s fast and it works, transaction after transaction.
With BuyMetrics, the buyer gets to focus on making the right deal, confirming the purchase, building relationships, measuring results, honing tactics/strategy (upping their game!). Our job is to make that possible.
The Learning Resources to Stay In Front of Change, Optimize Return on Inventory
If you’re a pro dealer or component manufacturer, your profitability depends on the success of your lumber buyers -- but it doesn’t end there – purchasing is the first step in the return on inventory cycle (ROI).
Distribution is a turn & earn business. Inventory is the only asset that generates operating profit. For most pro dealers, commodity lumber represents their fastest turning inventory category, 40+% of CoG sold. A true commodity, lumber is buffeted by the forces of supply and demand. The buyer must discover price and availability anew for each purchase. Volatile pricing affects not just the buy-side but also the sell-side of the turn & earn inventory cycle. Builders aggressively shop framing, it’s their largest material cost - new home construction.
Data-Informed Pricing Locks-in Profit
Metrics measure effectiveness. Because buy-price and sell-price are direct levers of net profit on sales, BuyMetrics is expanding its data services to include 360° Metrics, executive-level reports/measures aimed at decision-makers across the business. Dynamic measures to help you maximize return on your hardest to manage inventory, sell smarter, bid tighter, manage the nexus of purchase, price, and profit. Real commodity data, your data, in actionable form, ready to help inform strategy, drive performance. In some cases, we’ve produced White Papers and timely research reports*; in others we’ve built easy-to-use plug & play utilities that enable decision-makers to ask “what if”, to model/measure alternate go-to-market strategies (turn & earn), plug profit leak.
ROI Lumber
To optimize return on inventory (lumber), we’ve added new “cost” metrics, measures derived from data not available in your ERP system. Actionable information that will expose the pitfall of cost-plus pricing (per accounting), stop you from giving away the bulk of your hard-earned purchase savings, help you to enhance volatile commodity margins.
* See Case Study: CoG Savings 2021 for a summary of the 2-4+% cost-of-goods savings achieved by users during key market cycles of the 21st century.
Data-In-Action: The Future of Procurement
Putting data to work for buyers, measuring results, is what “Buy” + “Metrics” (BuyMetrics®) is all about. At the dawn of the 21st century, BuyMetrics set out to harness the data required to inform purchase decisions, to go beyond automating workflow and supply-chain connections, to automate the creation of decision-shaping information, the on-the-fly knowledge required to empower the buyer. The complexity of doing the job right was daunting… the need to normalize/harmonize dispersed and disparate data (internal/external data, structured/unstructured data), to objectively compare unequal tallies/bundled loads, to evaluate item/offer price in relation to market value, to produce buyer-specific, transaction-specific measures (metrics) on-the-fly. Harnessing the data, creating the tools commodity buyers need to leverage it, required a new, more flexible system architecture, new more agile methods to manage imperfectly matched, multi-variant, multi-parameter data. For BuyMetrics, necessity was the mother of invention.
Award Winning Technology
The reward for doing the job right: loyal clients (some for 20+ years). The reward for inventing new technology, new methods: 21 U.S. Patents (between 2000 and 2019). It turns out, the lumber trade is deceptively complex, endlessly more complicated to manage than Exchange-traded financial instruments or SKU/barcoded items – where, by definition, each item/contract is “fungible”, a perfect substitute for every other item/contract (simple to MATCH, easy to trade).
Today, BuyMetrics’ Patents are widely cited as Prior Art by leading firms across the finance, computing and online industries, including but not limited to: the CME and NYMEX, the NYSE and Interactive Data (ICE), E-Speed/BGC, TDAmeritrade/Scottrade; Oracle, IBM, SAP, Intuit, Dell, Alcatel/Lucent, Avaya; GE, Ford, Mitsubishi, LG Electronics, Honeywell (Elster); Accenture, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Salesforce.com, MasterCard, Square, Alibaba and a dozen others from China, Taiwan and Japan. At the dawn of the 21st century, who would have predicted the future of data in action, the methods/tools to automate knowledge creation, would have roots here, in the lumber industry, with BuyMetrics?
22+ Years of Continuous Improvement
From 2000 to today, BuyMetrics has continuously improved its cutting-edge technology. For decades, experienced lumber/panels buyers have pounded-on and honed the software, making it more agile and robust for all users. The result: unparalleled commodity lumber procurement. With BuyMetrics, you have the efficiency of online commerce AND the effectiveness of decision-shaping information. Automated workflows save time. Data-informed buying saves dollars. Data-informed pricing optimizes profit. 360° Metrics help you stay ahead of the competition -- whatever the market brings.
Cyber-Security: the ever-present threat
BuyMetrics’ services are continuously hardened to minimize the risk of cyber/ransomware attack. BuyMetrics automatically authenticates all users (supports additional levels of client-specific authentication). The use of e-mail is intentionally limited. Vendor notification (if received via e-mail) takes the vendor to BuyMetrics’ Connections™ Portal, a secure interface, before any data is entered.
BuyMetrics proprietary platform runs on Azure, Microsoft’s secure, state-of-art cloud infrastructure.
Ready to Learn More?
To see BuyMetrics in action for yourself, call or email to schedule a live (online) test drive/demo. See how BuyMetrics data-driven technology may be of benefit to your business. Learn what we do and what we do not do. Speak with industry colleagues using BuyMetrics. Model your savings with our handy Business Case calculator. Get started today.
How BuyMetrics Adds Value