Bunzl - Sales Force Mobility Solution

Bunzl Australasia

Overview
Country: International
Industry: Consumables Distributor
Company Profile: Bunzl is a leading supplier of a range of business-to-business consumable products.  
Business Situation: Bunzl were using a paper-based ordering system for their field sales force. This system was highly inefficient and contributed directly to high staff turnover.  
Solution: LogicalTech developed a Windows Mobile Solution that provided a customised business application for the sales and order fulfilment teams.
Benefits: Bunzl now saves 56 labour hours every day. The mobile solution gave a return on investment (ROI) within three months.

The Assignment

Bunzl distribute wholesale goods throughout Australia and Asia. The company was dissatisfied with their ordering system, which was paper-based. The system required employees to gather paperwork before sales appointments and to key in the orders at the end of the day. Orders were not processed for one or two business days, and manual data entry increased the likelihood of errors in shipped items. Further loss was incurred if the incorrect item was perishable. The company was losing revenue because of the slow fulfilment of orders. Delayed invoicing affected cash flow. The company also suffered from high staff turnover due to the frustration of the sales and order teams. .  

LogicalTech’s brief was to provide a solution for these problems.

The LogicalTech Approach

LogicalTech developed and implemented a new system that included

<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->providing the sales team with 28 Palm Treo Smartphones running Windows Mobile 6.1.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->developing a .Net application to extract and send a list of proposed sales calls to staff via the Smartphone

<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->giving sales staff immediate access to customer details

<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->enabling the sales team to submit orders from the field

<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->replacing the old order and fulfilment system with state-of-the-art solution that allows sales staff to send in customer orders from the field

<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->streamlining order and product fulfilment through integration of the application

The Value of the Solution

 Bunzl’s new mobile system has greatly improved sales with better customer service. Streamlining has simplified many tasks. Each salesperson is saving at least two hours a day. Multiplied across 28 sales reps, this gives a daily saving of 56 hours. The automated order entry saves another seven hours, for an overall of 63 hours saved daily. There are fewer incorrect orders, producing additional savings for Bunzl. Faster order processing means stock is turned over faster. It also enables Bunzl to send out invoices quickly, reducing average debtor days and improving cash flow.

Due to the system’s efficiency, sales staff require less support from the main office. The new system has improved morale among staff, who feel more in control of their work. Better service for their customers increases customer loyalty. Customers are positive about the changes and feel reassured by Bunzl’s long-term investment in new technology. The success of LogicalTech’s solution enabled Bunzl to see a return on investment within three months.

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> <!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->