Overview
The Cook & Boardman Group operates one of the most complex hardware distribution businesses in the U.S., spanning multiple brands, locations, product lines, and operating models. Over years of growth through acquisitions and decentralized execution, the organization accumulated a patchwork of legacy systems, manual workflows, and disconnected data that reflected how the business had evolved - rather than how it needed to operate going forward.
As scale increased, this fragmentation made it difficult for teams to work consistently across business units, respond quickly to customer and market demands, or maintain a reliable, enterprise-wide view of operations. Critical processes relied heavily on manual handoffs and institutional knowledge, introducing operational friction and limiting the organization’s ability to adapt with confidence.
What the business needed was not incremental optimization, but a fundamental shift in how people, systems, data, and processes worked together - one that could support enterprise complexity without adding operational overhead. To achieve this, the organization partnered with us to modernize its digital foundation, integrate fragmented systems, and enable new, scalable ways to operate business.
Services: The Digital Foundation
This transformation was approached as a foundational, enterprise-wide initiative, not a collection of isolated system upgrades. The core objective was to establish a cohesive digital foundation that could unify operations across multiple business entities while remaining flexible enough to evolve with future growth.
The work focused on aligning technology, data, and workflows around how the business actually runs. This included integrating disconnected systems, standardizing and automating critical processes, and enabling consistent access to reliable data across teams. Just as importantly, new capabilities were designed to fit naturally into day-to-day operations, reducing reliance on manual effort and institutional knowledge. This foundation became the backbone for every solution that followed - spanning manufacturing, supply chain, procurement, sales, and customer engagement.
Digital Ordering and Sales Experiences
With a unified operational core in place, the next priority was transforming how customers and sales teams interacted with the business. Existing commerce and sales processes were deeply tied to back-office systems, limiting self-service capabilities and creating inefficiencies for both customers and internal teams.
A unified digital commerce platform was designed and delivered, tightly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics ERP and vendor systems. The platform powered both a modern B2C eCommerce storefront for online purchasing and a B2B sales portal for managing quotes, orders, fulfillment, and account activity. By centralizing commerce logic across both experiences, it ensured real-time data consistency, reduced manual intervention, and established a scalable foundation for digital revenue - serving customers and sales teams through a single, connected system.
Automation Across Core Business Processes
Even with integrated systems and better visibility, many mission-critical workflows - such as vendor payments, procurement, sales hierarchies, and approvals, remained manual and inconsistent across systems. Variations in data structures and process execution continued to slow operations and increase dependency on manual coordination.
Process automation was introduced as a unifying execution layer across legacy ERPs, third-party applications, and Microsoft Business Central. Key workflows were redesigned & automated end to end, enabling consistent execution without replacing any system. By embedding automation directly into everyday operations, the organization improved accuracy, reduced manual effort, and accelerated execution, scaling reliably without adding operational complexity.
Rapidops became our digital partner of choice when looking for a user-friendly and responsive sales portal to integrate with our new ERP. Because of them, we have been able to maintain functionality, productivity, and visibility during a crucial transition.
Craig Stilwell
VP of Digital Services / Cook & Boardman Group
Impact
The transformation reshaped how Cook & Boardman operates at scale, establishing enterprise-wide clarity, control, and consistency in a business defined by complexity and growth.
With this connected digital foundation in place, the business is better equipped to absorb complexity, respond faster to market demands, and scale without adding overhead. As the organization continues to grow, we remain an active partner, helping extend this foundation, unlock new capabilities, and support long-term performance and resilience.
30%
Increase in production efficiency
40%
Reduction in order processing time
2x
Faster decision-making
20+
ERPs unified into a single enterprise view
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