Wickes lumber offers many products

Wickes lumber is a wood company that offers many products, including shingles. It recently filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was unable to leave the proceedings as it had hoped. Wickes lumber had many locations, as many as 115 in 2002, which have been mostly absorbed by Lanoga. Wickes lumber company was once the premier wood company and supplier in America. It had hundreds of clients, from contractors to home remodelling companies. It created all sorts of products, from long wooden boards to shingles for roofs. Additionally, it had a plan that served three different types of customers, allowing the company to diversify without moving into totally different product lines.

Wicks lumber: high tech

Wickes lumber company was instrumental in developing BuilderCentral. This building help tool was designed, with input from software designers, builders and remodelers, to help people estimate costs, determine materials needed and their amounts. This was meant to help boost profits, especially for those with small businesses. But because BuilderCentral was a computer program, Wickes lumber, as well as other contractors despaired that it was hard to access from the job site. In a partnership with Microsoft, the company created the program to work with the Pocket PC, allowing it to be portable. This meant that Wickes lumber was at the forefront of cutting edge technology.

Wickes lumber company is no more

While the company was never too clear on its problems, when the chief operation officer resigned, the business strategy seemed to change. When the home market turned around, and began losing ground for new construction, the company saw a major dent in its fiscal soundness. Eventually it began selling assets and had to apply for bankruptcy.

Like any other business, overstretching one’s assets can lead to problems. It frequently happens in the business world that one company has to give way for another. While many of Wickes’ employees were laid off, some were kept when Lanoga took over. Even though homes will always be needed, it really depends upon how fast they are going up. When new construction starts slowing down, it can spell trouble for companies based on construction, as shown by Wickes lumber.