\”Did Ian say that he wanted 12 cases of Tennent\’s or 15?\” \”Did Laura say that she wanted 20 cases of Gordon\’s or 50?\”
Sound familiar? This happens every day across the UK and Ireland! It\’s 2018 and sales reps for some of the largest drinks distribution companies across the UK and Ireland are still using pens and pieces of paper to take orders when they\’re out and about in bars, restaurants and off-sales.
Some of the larger wholesalers and drinks companies can get away with this to an extent because they have huge numbers of people working in their offices who are dedicated to facilitating the relationship between the warehouse and the rep.
Did you know that 29% of Excel spreadsheets contain errors? 29%! That\’s nearly a third! Would you be happy knowing that the business decisions that you\’re investing time and money in, are based on information, a third of which is incorrect?
What could dodgy data mean for your business?
For starters, your reps could let down your customers by ordering the incorrect items. What then happens is that their off-licence has no Smirnoff on a Friday, their usual customers go to a competitor and continue to go there in future. How much trade have they lost long term because of dodgy data? That off-licence could be on the phone to another rep in another distribution company on Monday morning.
Dodgy data can result in your warehouse manager ordering too much of a product they really don\’t have room for in your premises. Did they sacrifice an item from their orders to make place for the large order that a rep promised, that didn\’t transpire?
Data errors could result in a promotion being offered that shouldn\’t have been, based on an unsubstantiated claim that has been driven by emotion. Your finance director wouldn\’t be happy if they thought they had approved a promotion that incurred a financial loss, because it was based on an assumption A failed promotion could implicate budgets well into the next quarter.
Taking about budgets and quarters, have you ever attempted to put together a sales report that clearly contains errors, but you\’ve tried to make it make sense? I\’ve seen this done on Excel spreadsheets with a complete ignorance for formulae and real numbers. And, I\’ve seen fictitious numbers being created in pubs and clubs to make spreadsheets add up. Nobody wins when this happens.
Can you relate to anything I\’ve just said? If you don\’t want to say it out loud that\’s grand. The purpose of this piece is to let you know, discreetly, that we\’ve a way of correcting this and vastly improving how your business takes orders. Rather, how your business makes orders…
How cool would it be if your rep had a tablet that they took to your customers and presented them with up-to-date and accurate data that showed their previous orders? Imagine that your reps could use this data to offer tailored promotions to retailers depending on the niche in which they operate, based on live stock numbers and trends?
This, and more, is possible with an ERP system and a handy tool called ORCA.
ORCA is a mobile app that you can download onto your tablet, and takes the paper, pens and guesswork out of your reps lives. ORCA runs off Gaina\’s main data management system, Control-IT.
The beauty of the relationship between Control-IT and ORCA is that all data feeds into the one, centralised system. No more spreadsheets equates to a huge reduction in errors. No more spreadsheets, coupled with no more reason for your rep to telephone into the head office, means that your reps can spend more time building relationships and selling, based on historical sales data.
Not only is ORCA a fantastic mobile sales tool that turns order takers into order makers, its also a really valuable market research tool. The most recent version of OCRA allows reps to carryout surveying within pubs, clubs, restaurants, off sales and more! Find out how your competition is positioning their product. How many facings of whisky do they have? What promotional materials do they have in-store?
All of that information can be fed into ORCA and Control-IT, giving sales and marketing managers the info that they need to ensure that they\’re offering the right price and promotion at the right time in the right venue.
Remember those reports, budgets and quarters that we talked about? Imagine they could take minutes, not days. Imagine you clicked a button and all of your sales data was compiled correctly, in a chart that you could break down in relation to product type, promotion, or even by the days of the week on which it sold? ORCA helps you do this! You can even automate the report to be sent to your boss on a Monday morning before they have their coffee and scream down the hall for \’those bloody numbers!\’ Let\’s make everyone\’s life easier.
So, we\’ll finish with this;
Do you want to save time by compiling reports in minutes, rather than days?
Do you want to ensure that sales decisions made by reps are based upon accurate and up-to-date data?
Do you want to ensure that you\’re offering the right promotions, at the price and at the right time?
You can with ORCA.
To find out more, and to start increasing your rep\’s order numbers, get in touch using the form below!