7 Signs You Need BI - Wholesalers

1. 7SIGNS YOUNEEDBUSINESS INTELLIGENCE WHOLESALERS A publication of

2. 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers “ “ Wholesalers are overrunwith reams of data that they simply aren’t extracting anyvalue from. The wholesale industry has played one of the most pivotal roles in the distribution network for well over 100 years, yet the challenges wholesalers face today are raising the stakes as many fight to maintain and increase their share of the market. Like many businesses, wholesale companies are heavily dependent on striking a profitable balance between supply and demand. In an industry worth billions, wholesalers are set on cementing their position within their markets and continuing to grow their businesses. A growing business means a growing data set, from invoices to customer interactions and sales data, wholesalers in particular are overrun with reams of data that they simply aren’t extracting any value from. This is just one of the sure fire signs that you need software in place to better manage your wholesale business from top to bottom. That is exactly where Business Intelligence (BI) can step in, taking complete control of data analysis and churning out valuable information and unmissable sales opportunities. BI solutions automate the task of analyzing data, providing a better understanding of company performance, creating a proactive sales culture offering a complete customer view for the entire business and streamlining the sales and marketing process. For the most part however, wholesalers are striving to ensure effective business management and growth while juggling the constant need to improve processes and streamline costs. Of course, as any business grows, so too does the complexity of its inner workings. The daily interaction between wholesaler, customer and supplier is often tested as many companies struggle to manage growth. SHARE THIS EBOOK WWW.SALES-I.COM

3. 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 1. Reliance on manualsystems One of the biggest challenges facing wholesalers is managing their company data. Many wholesalers continue to rely heavily on paper-based systems to take orders, manage customers and do business. Systems like these often demand huge investments of time and effort to manage any sort of account. Being so labor intensive makes them incredibly unwieldy when it comes to costs too. But there is a multitude of software systems available today that can manage all manner of processes. From managing customer data to monitoring inventory and identifying sales opportunities, technology has moved on leaps and bounds of late and can automate almost every process within your business. BI will automate your entire sales process, from collating customer records to smarter management of sales history and customer buying behavior and sales patterns. Feeding upon the transactional information stored within your company’s ERP or accounting software, it can monitor every transaction before identifying trends and highlighting every additional sales opportunity with very little effort on a user’s part. SHARE THIS EBOOK WWW.SALES-I.COM

4. 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 2. Changing customerdemand Customer requirements are consistently changing and particularly so in times of economic strife. Customer demands can change almost overnight in an effort to look after their own business needs and protect their cash flow. As customer needs change, any company needs to be responsive in order to retain their existing customers. The key here is to increase sales and marketing spend, not cut back as some might. As competition increases between wholesalers, the need for better customer insight and a more proactive approach to selling will soon become evident. Without a complete view of your customers’ changing purchasing behavior, no wholesaler can remain competitive in a fluctuating market. A BI tool will automatically sift through your sales and transactional data before presenting you with targeted marketing opportunities to outsell your competition. If customer demands are changing for economic reasons, why not offer a valuable link sell opportunity or promotion for a complementary product? Or if they are buying regular line items from you, a BI tool is smart enough to preempt their need to reorder and you can swoop in well before the competition to get a deal signed off.Your customers will appreciate the thought and will likely return to you in the future.

5. 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers “ “ To remain competitive,you must be competing on value and not just price. 4. Need to streamline inventory 3. Increasing competition As in any business, managing your inventory is key. Storage costs money and low margin items aren’t the best for your bottom line. Wholesalers likely have thousands of line items, if not more, and the need to distinguish the low margin items from the high margin items is key. In a flourishing market, intense rivalry soon develops between wholesalers as new businesses continue to pop up almost daily. Competition is no longer limited to a national problem, but an international one. The increase in globalization has caused a surge in the number of wholesalers operating within the international marketplace. As your customers seek the best price, your overseas counterparts may be better positioned to offer knockdown prices, tempting your customers to switch their loyalties. The ‘low price, low margin, high volume’ model simply won’t fly unless you are an industry leader with a huge customer following that can generate a healthy profit for you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that selling at a high price for higher margins is the only way of doing business, more that you need the insight to understand which of your products produce the optimal amount of return. To remain competitive, you must be competing on value. Price is important, however supplying lifetime value to your customers will keep them coming back for more. Offering product advice, suggestions, even an article you think they may find useful all adds value. It keeps you front of mind and ensures that your customers are thinking of you, not your competition, when they need to reorder. Using a BI solution can help with the smarter management of your extensive product range, particularly if you have thousands of line items. Trawling your sales data, it will highlight your top grossing items, your best and worst sellers and those that generate you the best profit margin. With this level of awareness at your fingertips, wholesalers can act accordingly to adjust or improve their sales approach. Whether this may be attempting to minimize production costs, raising prices or even discontinuing a poor performing product line, companies will be safe in the knowledge that decisions have been made on fact and data, rather than gut feelings. A good BI solution will allow you to outsmart the competition at every corner. Plotting a clear picture of any adverse competitor activity, you can form your plan of attack and respond with tactical sales opportunities based on fact that will ensure your customers remain yours.

6. 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 5. Performance management As time goes on and business grows, it often becomes more troublesome to manage employee and company performance as a whole. Not only does the amount of data you harvest grow, but so too does the size of your workforce. Managing their performance is challenging at the best of times, but becomes even more difficult as you expand. Every company will benefit from having good people, but managing their development, workloads and performance is often a time consuming task, not to mention the overbearing job of managing company finances as sales soar. BI was made to help companies flourish during their growth phase, from smallentrepreneurialbusinessesintotheinternationalheavyweightsofthe business world. Reporting on company and even employee performance is time consuming, but necessary. BI solutions however, make this level of reporting a breeze, instantly collating every required scrap of information you need to monitor and improve performance. From top selling products to your best account, branch or even region, BI software can produce granular performance reports in seconds. SHARE THIS EBOOK WWW.SALES-I.COM

7. 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 25% have bought product X but notY 6. Identifying growth opportunities The continual delivery of growth is the ultimate goal for most wholesalers, from expanding into new markets to securing high profile customers. While most businesses are of the belief that any kind of growth takes months of planning and research, many quick wins can be found within your existing customer base. And in increasingly competitive markets, any opportunity for growth must be seized. For example, a BI solution can identify instant cross and link selling opportunities that lie within your customer base in seconds. If you are selling paper to a customer, why aren’t they purchasing their toner or pens from you? And who are they currently buying these products from? These kind of opportunities are quick and easy sales that can be made in a single phone call or meeting. The help of BI solutions can empower wholesalers of every size to maximize their current position within the market, fuelling the fire for impressive growth further down the line. Such opportunities can range from identifying quick sales opportunities to winning business back from the competition. Use BI to identify your fastest growing product group and work with your marketing team to capitalize on this. Design an exclusive promotion for quick wins, offer existing customers a free sample or even tempt prospective customers in with a knockdown introductory price. Not only will this grow your market penetration but will spark interest amongst your customers and could even lead to news spreading about your latest promotion.

8. 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers Spot potential problems early 7. Little customerloyalty Retaining customers is becoming an expensive battle for most wholesalers; particularly as international competitors continue to prey on your customers with low prices and fast delivery times. Customer loyalty is very important in the wholesale industry and satisfied customers form an integral part of your business, but as customers become more and more price sensitive, you need to be able to provide a level of service that makes it easy for them to reorder from you. With a diverse customer base, keeping every customer happy demands a complete overview of daily interactions and sales history. Any good BI system will integrate your sales data with your customer information and provide you with a complete overview of each account. Not only will this allow you to stay on top of their performance, but will also act as a central information point for your entire business and you can provide a level of service that is truly second to none. BI software supplies the insight that will ensure your many customers are treated as individuals and given the right incentives to keep ordering from you. Whether this is a personalized promotion based on their purchase history or even a free sample, the key is to remain at the front of your customer’s mind so that when they need to reorder, they instantly think of you.

9. 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers 7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers STREAMLINE YOUR SALESAND MARKETING PROCESS USA address sales-i 1840 Oak Avenue, Suite100, Evanston, IL 60201 UK address Prologis House 1 Monkspath Hall Road Solihull B90 4FY United Kingdom 1-847-868-8175 0845 508 7355 sales-i is a powerful cloud based Business Intelligence solution that joins your ERP data together with your CRM data to give you actionable sales information for each and every customer. We turn a good sales person into a great one. www.sales-i.com SHARE THIS EBOOK WWW.SALES-I.COM