Wincotrade, a supplier of mineral waters, juices and other consumables to service station shops in South Africa, has recently seen a marked increase in productivity. This increase as well as improved customer service was achieved by giving its sales people the ability to place stock orders from their personal digital assistants (PDAs) directly into Pastel Evolution, a business management application targeted at the SME market
Since going live with the system, sales representatives can now send invoices through as sales orders for immediate fulfilment by warehouse staff. Orders were previously processed manually from invoices, faxed through every morning, significantly delaying stock selection by warehouse staff. Out-of-stock items are now also automatically put on back order. Sales volumes have been maximised and a superior service is being delivered to customers.
"As Pastel Evolution runs on Microsoft SQL Server, our custom-written mobile application was easily integrated into the system. This has streamlined order processing as well as the daily stock-take operation," says Wayne Marucchi, Financial Manager at Wincotrade.
Wincotrade also implemented the Pastel Business Intelligence Centre (BIC) add-on module. Enhanced reporting capabilities have provided essential operational insights, such as sales targets per sales person.
"We can determine on a daily basis which clients have been visited, the number of items sold and their value. The ability to print back-order reports has also ensured an improvement in overall stock management," Marucchi says.
"Before, it took as much as a day to compile sales reports for our suppliers each month; it now takes five minutes."
Reporting capabilities have further ensured improved stock insights. "We can access product-specific information at the push of a button, which has also made it easier to meet targets set by our suppliers. By showing zero sales by month, we can also determine why a particular customer might no longer be purchasing certain stock items, find out why and address any issues," says Marucchi.
"We have been looking for the functionality provided by the Pastel Business Intelligence Centre for a long time, and have found this add-on module to be extremely valuable and useful. Support received from Pastel has also given us added confidence in the Pastel Evolution product set."
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