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Insights & Updates
Product updates, industry insights, and best practices for steel service centers and metal distributors.
How to Create a Steel Product Catalog That Drives Sales
Your product catalog is your sales team's most powerful tool and your customer's primary reference for what you sell. Most steel distributors either do not have one or have one that is useless.
All-in-One vs. Best-of-Breed: The Steel Distribution Verdict
The tech industry has debated suite vs. point solution for decades. In steel distribution, the answer is clear.
The Remnant Problem: How Service Centers Lose Money on Steel They Already Own
Industry estimates suggest 3% to 8% of total inventory value sits in untracked remnants. That is real money rotting in the corner of Bay 3.
How to Reduce Energy Costs at a Steel Service Center
Energy is the fourth-largest operating cost at most service centers, after material, labor, and rent. A 15% reduction drops $30,000 to $75,000 per year to the bottom line.
How to Build Strategic Partnerships Between Steel Service Centers
Your competitor three states away is not your competitor. They are a potential partner who can extend your reach, fill your product gaps, and provide backup when you need it most.
How to Manage Returns and Claims at a Steel Service Center
Returns and claims are inevitable. How you process them determines whether they cost you $200 or $2,000, and whether the customer stays or leaves.
The State of Digital Transformation in Steel Distribution: 2025 Report
An honest assessment of where the steel industry stands on technology. Most service centers still run on-premise desktop software.
The Real Cost of Running Five Disconnected Systems
A typical mid-size service center runs MetalTrax for inventory, QuickBooks for accounting, Outlook for CRM, Excel for quoting, and a whiteboard for production scheduling. We calculated the hidden costs.
How Steel Service Centers Can Win Government Infrastructure Contracts
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $1.2 trillion. Service centers that understand government procurement win the business.
MTR Management: The Paperless Path to Compliance
Every piece of steel that ships needs a Mill Test Report. Most service centers manage these as paper documents stored in folder structures that make finding a specific MTR a 15-minute archaeological expedition.
The Hidden Cost of Manual Data Entry in Steel Distribution
A 25-person service center wastes 50 to 75 hours per week on manual data entry between disconnected systems. Here is the real cost.
The Vertical SaaS Revolution: What Toast, Procore, and Veeva Teach Us About Steel Software
Toast built a $15 billion company by understanding that restaurants are not retail stores. Steel distribution is next.