Mid America Paper Recycling Turns Data Into Insights with BT Partners and Domo
Industry
Industrial Processing
Solution
Domo
Client Since
2022
Mid America Paper Recycling
Mid America Paper Recycling provides recycling solutions nationwide for partners ranging from small businesses to large multinational corporations. Founded in 1926, Mid America is a fourth-generation independent broker, processor, and exporter of recovered paper serving customers across the US from its Chicago headquarters. The company utilizes its own fleet and select freight partners to transport waste between suppliers, warehouses, and paper mills to earn its customers the highest possible price.
While the mission may sound straightforward, success in this industry involves both opportunities and challenges. That’s why Mid America engaged BT Partners’ Executive Analytics team to help it navigate and capitalize on the opportunities and overcome the challenges.
"I’ve recommended BT Partners to several colleagues. They are very talented and do a tremendous job for us. Because of their experience, they often share ideas that they’ve learned working with other, similar companies — which is very helpful."
Looking for Differentiators
“We continually look for differentiators, ways to make a positive impact for our organization and our business partners,” explains Don Gaines, Mid America’s CEO. “To do that, we must have deep visibility into data points and methods to aggregate and analyze that data. BT Partners and Domo provide that.”
Before deciding on Domo, Mid America extensively reviewed the business intelligence marketplace.
“We considered Tableau, Power BI, and Domo, speaking to vendors for each solution,” recalls Gaines. “We also consulted with our accounting firm, Miller Cooper, for their input. They introduced us to BT Partners’ Executive Analytics team, who represents Domo. Once we met with BT Partners, they quickly gained our trust and our business.”
Fast Implementation Leads to Quick Wins
To deliver a quick win on the initiative, BT Partners and Mid America started by building Domo views into the company’s accounting data.
“Sales and receivables were our first initiative,” recalls Gaines. “This information is easy to understand and the benefits to the business were instantaneous. Using Domo, our finance teams gained instant, real-time insights into data that previously required them to generate several different reports.”
In addition to quick convenience, Gaines says that Mid America’s staff truly enjoys using Domo. “People gravitate to its visual displays and vastly prefer them to spreadsheets, pivot tables, and check boxes,” he says.
Telling the Story Behind the Data
“Domo helps tell the story behind our data, literally creating stories out of numbers,” Gaines continues. “For our management team, the story may be how the organization is doing financially. For our customers, the story may be pricing trends. For our suppliers, the story revolves around supply variables. We can share the story of the data with each of these stakeholders, and the story is much more impactful than simply the data.”
Driving Internal Efficiencies
Beyond telling a good story, Domo helps Mid America drive internal efficiencies. A Domo card monitoring invoice due dates keeps the receivables team in front of collections and improves the company’s cash flow. Managers are monitoring the workload and productivity of their teams in near real-time, which provides insights into excess capacity or suggests a need to increase personnel.
Sales teams see month-by-month and year-to-date information about shipments, tonnage, revenues, and profit margins. Insight into transaction volumes, product grades, and locations also inform the team’s understanding of industry trends so they can share valuable market intelligence with customers.
To keep business moving forward, Mid America closely monitors its brokerage transactions and tracks each salesperson’s productivity. BT Partner built Domo cards to support these activities as well. “We see what percentage of transactions we’re finalizing for the week, giving us time to pivot and shift strategies when necessary,” Gaines explains.
Connecting the Business
In addition to accounting, payroll, and HRMS applications, Mid America uses a cieTrade, a recycling industry application. “Domo had existing connectors to most of our applications, and for the others, BT Partners worked with us and our vendors to create the connections and map the data,” Gaines explains.
Sharing Data with Stakeholders
With BT Partners’ help, Mid America has built a report suite that is generated and distributed automatically through Domo. “For example, our sales team receives a recap report every Friday,” Gaines notes. “They love having quick access to their data, and many are even starting to build their own reports.
“Plus, we’ve created environmental impact reports that are automatically distributed to our partners. We include the estimated number of trees they’ve saved through their recycling efforts. Our competitors aren’t doing this, so it sets us apart and serves as a retention tool.”
Recommendation Earned
“I’ve recommended BT Partners to several colleagues,” Gaines concludes. “They are very talented and do a tremendous job for us. Because of their experience, they often share ideas that they’ve learned working with other, similar companies — which is very helpful.”