Our Dealer of the Year’s choice of Extra Trax, software better known for serving auto parts suppliers, to provide its dispatching and customer relations management (CRM) capabilities likely won’t be the only time in coming months that a dealer hires a software company that’s not known for its LBM work.

PROSALES has learned that at least two other companies besides Extra Trax will begin marketing to lumber and building material dealers this year, thus creating competition for existing players like Epicor, DMSi, ECi, Spruce, and Ponderosa.

One of the newcomers is Kerridge Commercial Systems, a British company that serves European building material dealers with its K8 system. It will sell K8 through Dancik, a Cary, N.C.-based company that Kerridge acquired last year.

The second IT firm entering the race is an as-yet unannounced Midwestern firm known for serving the auto parts aftermarket.

As for Extra Trax, this Eau Claire, Wis.-based subsidiary of firm called Applied Data Consultants has been piloting a cloud-based LBM version of its product with several dealers nationwide, Extra Trax president Jim Ward says. It expects to begin formal marketing of the product this year; Franklin Building Supply is its first official LBM customer. “This is one industry in which we think our software is a good fit,” Ward says.