Woodhouse to Implement ARKONA's New Ensign Dealer Management Suite, ASP Model
Business Editors/High-Tech WritersSALT LAKE CITY--Jan. 29, 2001--
Sundog(TM) Technologies Inc. d/b/a/ ARKONA(R) Inc., (OTC:SDTH) a leader in business management and data distribution software, Monday announced that Woodhouse, a leading Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Viper, and Lincoln-Mercury dealer in Nebraska, has selected ARKONA to host its dealership management solutions.
The Ensign Dealer Management Suite, ASP model, will allow Woodhouse to move their businesses to the next level of customer support and satisfaction. This benefit, plus its ability to deliver customer history in multiple marketing scenarios, makes it the most cost effective system in moving the dealerships, including their Internet business, forward.
Woodhouse, known as the "Country Giant," is No. 1 in both new and used car sales in Nebraska and Iowa and ranks among the top 60 new car dealers for both Ford and Daimler-Chrysler in the United States. They have the largest selection of new and pre-owned vehicles in the Midwest while still maintaining the country dealership environment.
"The automotive business is a business of relationships," said Bob Woodhouse, dealer principal. "The Ensign Suite has unlimited information storage and recall, as well as extensive customer data mining. This will allow the Woodhouse staff to have easy access to information for interaction with clients and potential customers.
"In addition, the ASP capabilities of the Ensign Suite allow multiple dealership locations to be connected over the Net no matter the distance between facilities. The ASP model significantly reduces the overall cost of software upgrade and system maintenance."
Woodhouse is also one of the leading automotive dealers with Internet-based marketing and sales initiatives. Last year, Woodhouse had an average of 2,000 vehicles per month featured on the Web and sold an average of 15 percent over the Internet.
As a result, Woodhouse chose the Ensign system because it provided the necessary tool set that allows the development of fully integrated Web-based applications.
"The Ensign Suite creates a seamless connection between our customers on the Web and our dealership," stated John Schomburg, director of Internet Services. "The real time input of a customer request and the immediate response by our service staff merges the virtual dealership with the physical dealership."
"We also chose ARKONA and the Ensign system because of their superior customer support," stated Woodhouse. "When we call ARKONA we get a live person who is knowledgeable and sincerely interested in helping us maximize the use of the system. The support team handles all upgrades and maintenance for us -- all at a lower monthly cost than our existing system or other solutions we evaluated."
For more information about ARKONA's Ensign Dealer Management Suite, ASP model, call 866/478-6364, or go to www.arkona.com.
About ARKONA
Founded in 1996, Sundog Technologies, doing business as ARKONA, is a public company and a leader in enterprise data movement and management solutions. ARKONA's Ensign Dealer Management Suite also leads the market in technologically superior e-business solutions for automotive dealers that fully integrate back office systems with a retail Web presence.
In this market ARKONA is one of the first premier Application Service Providers (ASP). ARKONA is also the creator of the Universal Update(TM) product family that extracts, replicates and moves data into formats that can be easily used in enterprise mobile computing and document distribution. For more information visit the ARKONA Web site at www.arkona.com.
This release may contain forward-looking statements as well as historical information.
Forward-looking statements, which are included in accordance with the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the company's actual results and performance in future periods to be materially different from any future results or performance suggested by the forward-looking statements in this release.
Such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release. The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements found herein to reflect any changes in company expectations or results or any change in events.
ARKONA, Sundog and Universal Update are trademarks of Sundog Technologies Inc. d.b.a. ARKONA Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.