xkzero Announces Food and Beverage System for Acumatica

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Leading software developer and ERP consultant, xkzero, announced today plans to offer a fully-integrated direct store delivery (DSD) & ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution for food and beverage wholesale distribution by integrating xkzero Mobile Commerce with Direct store delivery for Acumaticaleading cloud ERP system Acumatica. The solution is expected to be ready for market in the second half of 2017. Initial target industries for the solution will be beer distributors, wine & spirits distributors, grocery wholesalers, milk and dairy, salty snacks and bakery products.

Mobile Commerce by xkzero is a flexible mobile app and web-based platform designed to optimize mobile sales, route delivery and intelligence gathering while unifying back office accounting and customer service. Food and beverage companies are able to automate and integrate functions such as Truck Loading, Route Planning and Scheduling, Route Selling, Delivery Automation, Compliance Tracking and Reporting as well as gathering new intelligence.

“We are very excited about partnering with Acumatica,” said xkzero Vice President, Mark Rastovac. “The market has responded very positively to Acumatica and its ability to manage sales orders, track inventory, improve purchasing as well as perform core accounting and financial reporting. Since xkzero has had such great success with Mobile Commerce integrated with Sage 100 and Sage X3, we see Acumatica as the perfect platform for Food and Beverage companies looking for a modern DSD and ERP offering — especially those that have outgrown Quickbooks,” added Mr. Rastovac. “What makes xkzero different is our ability to deliver the entire solution for these wholesalers – from supply chain and warehousing, to financial management to in-store performance.”

“We’ll launch with the food and beverage sector in mind,” continued Mr. Rastovac, “then likely consider other industries relying on route sales and direct store delivery as a means to distribute, such as oil and gas, industrial supplies and hard goods – we’ve had plenty of demand from those companies too.”

About xkzero
xkzero specializes in integrated mid-market ERP systems for wholesale distributors and manufacturers who rely on mobile sales, route sales and direct store delivery automation as a means of distribution. xkzero is a certified consultant and developer for Sage X3, Sage 100 and Acumatica, creating integrated and embedded mobile solutions into some of North America’s most popular and powerful ERP and accounting systems for the mid-market. Find out more at xkzero.com.

About Acumatica

Acumatica is a leading provider of cloud business management software that empowers small and mid-size businesses to unlock their potential and drive growth. Built on the world’s best cloud and mobile technology and a unique customer-centric licensing model, Acumatica delivers a suite of fully integrated business management applications, such as Financials, Distribution, CRM, and Project Accounting, on a robust and flexible platform. In an interconnected world, Acumatica enables customers to take full control of their businesses, play to their organizations’ unique strengths, and support their clients by following them anywhere on any device.

[this press release was originally published on PR Web January 26, 2017]

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

The Plight of the Modern Customer Service Manager

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

 

Mobile help for customer service!

Mobile help for customer service!

Your hands are full

This is probably not news to you, but as a modern customer service manager you have your hands full! And that is mainly because your customers are now literally all over the place.

They are all over the place in terms of what they expect from you as a seller of goods and services. They are all over the place in terms of how they expect to interact with you. In terms of how they expect to place orders. In terms of how they inquire about their orders, or about the availability of product in your warehouse. Your customers are all over the place in terms of how they expect to pay you. All over the place in terms of the availability of intelligence for you to gather and discern. All over the place in terms of what it takes for you to earn their loyalty.

Yes, that is a lot to lay on you, as if managing customer service was not already challenging enough.

Because customer needs rule

But here is the good news—all of this customer expectation spells opportunity for you. That is because the winners in your industry today are the ones ready, willing and able to meet, greet and serve the customer wherever they are and whenever they’re ready to interact with you.

Your day is obviously filled with activities focused on what makes your most valuable to your company—building relationships, identifying customer needs, gathering intelligence, resolving issues, and representing your company These are all critical activities to the overall success of the business and building and maintaining brand loyalty.

However, what the customer expects from you, and when, has changed dramatically. Today’s customer wants and needs to interact with you on THEIR terms, not yours. Are you ready to meet them where they are? One way to get a sense of readiness is to take an inventory of your sales processes, technology and tools.

What your sales tools say about your business

What is the experience of doing business with you like today? Are you about to accommodate the wide range of buying expectations?

What possible ways can your customer interact with you when it comes to things like requesting a quote, placing an order, checking on inventory or shipment status? What means do they have to place an order with you?

  • Fax machine?
  • Telephone?
  • Customer service counter?
  • E-commerce website?
  • Customer portal?
  • Mobile app?

Our experience tells us that many of you reading this are still offering a sales channel built around the first three on the list—fax, phone and personal visit. While that may seem sufficient for you today, you may ask yourself about what your industry, and your place in it, will look like 2, 3 or 5 years from now. If competitors enter your space, do you think those new Millennial businesses will ask their customers to fax in orders? I don’t think so.

The smartphone is a profit machine

Have you noticed the communication tendencies of the new generation of workers? Their use of the telephone is a fraction of that compared to earlier generations. The modern workforce is far more inclined to interact with you online, often via an app on their smartphone or tablet.

I mentioned in an earlier paragraph that all of this is good news. And I believe it is good news. If you explore the marketplace you’ll see multiple options to connect E-commerce sites, customer portals and mobile sales apps with your back office ERP/accounting system.

Obviously you want to offer your customers access to you in ways that help you win more business and even more loyalty. So make sure your communication choices are reliable, dependable and supportable for you and your business. You just might find that you can do without that fax machine.

###

xkzero specializes in mobile sales, route sales and direct store delivery automation for small and mid-sized manufacturers and wholesale distribution companies. xkzero is also a certified developer for Sage X3, Sage 100 and Sage 500, creating integrated and embedded mobile solutions into some of North America’s most popular and powerful ERP and accounting systems for the mid-market.

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Mobile B2B Sales: A Practical Guide for Operations Managers

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

 

As an operations manager the design and control over business operations is in your hands.  As your industry evolves, your ability to stay on top of best practices and adaptation of new technologies is so important.  This article offers key insights into mobile B2B sales, and a practical guide for operations managers.

Mobile sales apps for B2B represent the new standard for growing small and mid-sized businesses. In fact, mobile B2B sales may be the greatest thing to happen for manufacturing and wholesale distributor sales reps since the invention of the printing press. There are very few technologies you can add to your business today that will have as far reaching effect on the quality of operations, and the bottom line of your business as a mobile sales app.

Job #1, as always, is to meet or exceed customer expectations. Your goals are centered around metrics like on-time deliveries, days on hand inventory and inventory turns. Mobile is setting the new standard for warehouse operations, and there is no role in the organization that will gain from the transition to mobile like operations will.

How will operations benefit:

  • Accelerated supply chain
  • Reduced delays and bottlenecks
  • Cost reduction
  • Increased order and invoice accuracy
  • Improved on-time delivery and other key metrics

Risk factors to watch out for:

  • Solutions that do not cater to your unique operations environment
  • Out of control budgets that customize projects can lead to
  • Poor or improperly designed integrations with your ERP system
  • Reliability of the mobile solution, and need for contingency planning

If your company has outside sales reps, or sells at trade shows, on a showroom floor, from special events or on-site with a customer –for you, the era of the printed product catalog, the paper order form, and the fax machine – is over.

Ready to talk about charting a mobile sales strategy that makes sense for your operations?  Contact us at info@xkzero.com or call 847-416-2009.

 

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

 

Mobile B2B Sales: A Practical Guide for Sales Reps

Mobile automation is the new standard for B2B sales

Mobile automation is the new standard for B2B sales

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

The mobile sales app for B2B represents the new standard for growing small and mid-sized businesses. It may be the greatest thing to happen for manufacturing and wholesale distribution sales reps since the invention of the printing press. Few technologies for business have the far-reaching impact on the quality of your work and your company’s bottom line of a mobile sales app.

If your company has outside sales reps, or sells at trade shows, on a showroom floor, from special events or on-site with a customer, for you, the era of the printed product catalog, the paper order form, and the fax machine is over. The integrated smart phone and tablet era is now. xkzero has summarized some important considerations for you here.

Salespeople

The impact of having everything you need in your pocket

Off you go to your prospect meeting. Off you go to the trade show. Off you go for another day on the showroom floor. Off you go, back to your hotel room. Off you go, equipped with a product catalog printed 9 months ago, a price list printed 6 weeks ago. Hoping the fax machine doesn’t get jammed when you send in your order. Hoping that a customer service rep is ready when you call to find out the status of the inventory you’d like to sell.

The new standard for B2B selling is the smart phone. It’s replaced the fax, the printed materials, and antiquated processes that hold back a business today.

How you will benefit from a mobile sales app as a salesperson:

  • You’ll be better prepared with fingertip access to up-to-the-moment customer and inventory data.
  • Customers and prospects will sense your increased confidence.
  • You’ll have the chance to close larger deals.
  • You’ll be able to complete high transaction volume sales more quickly.
  • You might not ever be late for a meeting again.

The price of not doing anything

Over 90 percent of the mobile sales automation projects xkzero has implemented over the past several years have been for companies that previously relied on the tools and processes of yesterday—printed product catalogs, paper order forms, and fax machines. For many of these businesses, sales reps had to call customer service for the status of anything customer or inventory related. Representing the entire spectrum of manufacturing and wholesale distribution industries, they have one thing in common. Once they switch from paper and manual processes to an automated mobile solution—they don’t change back.

More practical guides – Mobile B2B Sales: A Practical Guide for Executives

Ready to talk about charting a mobile sales strategy for your business? Contact us at info@xkzero.com or call 847-416-2009.  Visit the xkzero website to learn more about our winning solutions.

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Mobile B2B Sales: A Practical Guide for Executives

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

 

Mobile sales apps for B2B represent the new standard for growing small and mid-sized businesses. In fact, mobile B2B sales may be the greatest thing to happen for manufacturing and wholesale distributor sales reps since the invention of the printing press. There are very few technologies you can add to your business today that will have as far reaching effect on the quality of your work, and the bottom line of your business as a mobile sales app.

The new standard for B2B sales is mobile

The new standard for B2B sales is mobile

If your company has outside sales reps, or sells at trade shows, on a showroom floor, from special events or on-site with a customer –for you, the era of the printed product catalog, the paper order form, and the fax machine – is over.

The integrated smart phone and tablet era is now. xkzero has summarized some important considerations for you here.

All stakeholders in your company—Executives, Salespeople, Operations Managers, Accounting and Finance and IT professionals—look at your business from a different angle. The great news is mobile can and will benefit all of them. But you need to avoid several pitfalls that can cost you money and headache.

If you have not yet mobilized your sales team, here are some important things for executives to consider.

Executives

From sales enablement to new revenue streams

Making or producing a great product is never enough to ensure business success, and relying on antiquated methods of selling can leave you vulnerable to new competitors that enter your market, hoping to disrupt.

More practical guides – Mobile B2B Sales: A Practical Guide for Sales Reps | Mobile B2B Sales: A Practical Guide for Operations Managers

 

A mobile sales app can do more than simply replace the fax machine with a smart phone as a means to get orders in your system. (Think about that for a minute.) It can turn you into a disruptor yourself.

How your team will benefit:

  • Increased revenue
  • New revenue streams
  • Reduced administrative costs
  • Better served customers
  • New and improved customer intelligence
  • Attraction of a new generation of sales reps and customers
  • More profits

Risk factors to consider:

  • Choice between a packaged solution and a solution that is custom designed specifically for your business
  • Adaptation by your team and overall usability
  • Ability to integrate with your existing systems
  • Achieving a justifiable ROI

The Cost of Inaction

Over 90 percent of the mobile sales automation projects xkzero has implemented over the past several years have been for companies previously relying on the tools and processes of yesterday – printed product catalogs, paper order forms, phone calls to customer service for the status of anything customer or inventory related.  Fax machines…

These companies represent the entire spectrum of manufacturing and wholesale distribution industries.

One thing all of the companies have in common is that once they switch from paper and manual processes to an automated mobile solution, they don’t change back.

Ready to talk about charting a mobile sales strategy for your business?  Contact us at info@xkzero.com or call 847-416-2009.

Visit the xkzero website to learn more about our winning solutions.

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

 

Why Creating a Great User Experience Matters Most

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

 

Take a guess at the #1 criteria for having a great mobile sales app for your business? If you guessed creating a great experience for the user then you are correct.

The reason is simple. It’s because most (if not all) of your business goals for mobile are linked to user adaptation.

When you invest in a mobile sales app, naturally, you expect certain measurable results, such as these:

  1. Larger orders
  2. New revenue streams
  3. Higher close rates
  4. Reduced admin costs
  5. Better equipped and informed sales reps
  6. New intelligence

When you invest in a mobile app—whether you build one customized for your company’s needs, or choose an out-of-the-box option directly from an app storeit should improve the experience of doing business with you. This should be true all up and down the supply chain, but especially for the user of the app.

What, then, does it mean to create a great user experience?

Your new mobile sales app should be intuitive. If it seems like there may be a lot of training involved, keep shopping. It should be dependable. The app can’t be crashing on you every other time you use it.

Your mobile app needs to introduce something new—something memorable. Your app should reward the user and keep them coming back to the app again and again. Think maps to customer locations. Think item images, spec sheets or even instructional videos to improve the understanding of your products. Think geo-awareness, signature capture and other measures that improve accountability. Think alerts and push notifications. Think photos. Think new intelligence gathering and a means to understand customer behavior in ways you never imagined.

Creating a Great User Experience Matters.

Focus on creating a great user experience for everyone involved, and your mobile sales app initiative will be on a sure track to success.

Taking photos at the customer location, whether it be a display case - or even a proof of delivery, enhances your understanding of your customer and helps to create a great user experience

Taking photos at the customer location, whether it be a display case – or even a proof of delivery, enhances your understanding of your customer and helps to create a great user experience

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

 

The single biggest mistake in sales?

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Meet the fax machine

“Four pages total. That should only take me about 20 minutes to enter into our sales order system!”

What makes a great sales process?  

Processes paired with the right business tools in order to drive maximum revenue at the lowest sales administration cost possible.   If you can do that while providing excellent customer service and a rewarding experience for your employees then you’re really on to something.

Which makes me wonder – can you have a great sales process when the tool in the middle of it all is…a fax machine?

At a recent technology conference, I presented a session entitled, “Why mobile, why now: a decision maker’s guide to success.” I asked the audience, “How many of you use a fax machine in your sales process?” Out of the approximately 110 people in attendance, half of them raised a hand.

Mobile app developers salivate at the sound of this kind of news.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the fax machine had its heyday, but it no longer serves us well. Today, using the fax machine as a tool for sales and purchasing processes can have a negative effect on your business. Here are some reasons:

  • It’s wholly inefficient.
  • It’s unnecessarily time consuming.
  • It creates potential for inaccuracies.
  • It terrifies younger workers.

In a world of integrated systems—ERP, CRM, e-commerce, mobile commerce—the fax machine should be at (or near) the top of your hit-list of antiquated tools to replace.

When a transaction is faxed, literally twice as much labor is required to complete the transaction than with an integrated mobile sales app—or even an online solution. A faxed order is first created on one system by the person generating the order, then it must be received, reviewed, and entered againthis time in the system of the receiver.

Benefits of an integrated mobile sales app include:

  • eliminate the redundant entry on the other end of the transaction
  • speed up the supply chain
  • reduce of errors
  • better experience for the sender and the receiver

As your company grows and the volume and size of the orders increasesthe more costly the fax machine becomes for you.

Whether you realize it or not, you are inevitably hiring workers in the new generation of so-called digital natives (those who were born using digital technology). Will your sales training include processes built around the fax machine, or will you embrace modern technological processes that will make your team more productive—and help you attract and retain an efficient and staff?

Mobile Technology—Intimidating or Enticing?

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Mobile technology - is it right for your sales organization?

Mobile Technology: Is it right for your sales organization?

Mobile Technology.

How do those two words make you feel? A little intimidated? That’s okay. For most of us, when it comes to business and ERP systems, mobile technology is a new concept. Even if you don’t feel like an expert today, there is a great opportunity for you as a Sage partner to benefit from the mobile revolution.

As you may know, Sage is taking a new direction with Mobile Sales. However, this doesn’t mean that there is not demand and opportunity for mobile automation. To the contrary! Demand is high, and opportunities are great. Mobile automation is significant—and growing. This is especially relevant to manufacturers and distributors looking for new revenue streams, a new competitive advantage, or ways to reduce administrative costs.

So how do you benefit as a Sage partner?

I recommend you start by taking a look at your clients and prospects to identify the best opportunities for success. Because while you may feel a little hesitant about mobile, many manufacturers and distributors find the idea very enticing and they’re going to talk with someone about it. Why not you?

The key is tapping into the companies that would most likely benefit from mobile sales automation.

Any manufacturer or distributor can be a candidate, but here are some things to look for that will help you find the businesses that will benefit the most from mobile sales automation:

  1. Do they already value and understand technology and the role it can play in their organization?
  2. Do they have a remote or outside sales force?
  3. Do sales people currently phone in or fax orders?
  4. Does the company still rely on printed product catalogs or price sheets?
  5. Do they make sales onsite at tradeshows or other special events?
  6. Do they have counter sales or a customer showroom?
  7. Do customers value their ability to promise product
    availability based on actual warehouse inventory?
  8. Do they sell B2B online, and if so, would they be interested in having a B2B app allowing customers to place orders anytime, anywhere?
  9. Are they in “traditional” mobile sales industries like food or beverage?
  10. Do they deliver their own products and capture signatures or require other kinds of proof of delivery?

See—there’s nothing scary or intimidating about these questions, right? And by making these inquiries to your clients, you’ve taken perhaps the most important step of all to being perceived as a mobile influencer—you’ve shown that you care about their company’s growth. This fact alone will be enough for some people to see you as an expert.

What if they answer “yes” to any of these questions?

Congratulations, you may have found yourself a mobile prospect. No need to be intimidated. When you work with xkzero, we always have your back.

We’re here to help you evaluate each and every opportunity, and coach you at every step of the way. If you’d like, we’re happy to participate on qualifying phone calls along with you—or even conduct those calls on your behalf.

If we’re fortunate enough to work with you and your clients you can earn great commissions, knowing that we’ll take care of 100% of the implementation and technical support. We’ve worked with dozens of Sage partners on mobile sales and delivery automation projects, some requiring only a few thousand dollars investment, with others making six figure investments.  So whether you think the idea of mobile technology for business is enticing – or find it a little intimidating, know this:  the opportunities with mobile are great and we’d love to work with you, too!

Would you like to learn more today? Email us at info@xkzero.com, visit our website or call us at 847-416-2009.

p.s. With the announcement of the discontinuance of Sage Mobile Sales, some of your clients will be looking for a new solution, and xkzero is here to help. You can learn more details here:
http://erpappsblog.com/sage-mobile-sales-retirement-announcement-promotion/

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

 

 

 

The Power of Surveys for Mobile Business

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

You don’t know your customer nearly as well as you think you do. This fact that is costing you money.

A previous version of this article appears in
Bellwether, a magazine produced by Blytheco, in the Fall 2015 edition called “Who is Your CMO?”
http://issuu.com/bellwethermagazine/docs/bellwether-fall-2015

The great news is that if you empower your sales people with a bit of mobile technology, you’ll not only be able to create customer greater loyalty, but you’ll be able to generate more marketshare, too.

The answer to building these relationships can be found with the use of surveys combined with the unique capabilities of smart phones such as push notifications, alerts, photo enablement, and GPS.

We all know that the key to effective B2B marketing is creating relevant and informative content for your target customer. Think, though, do you really know what is pertinent to your customer? Sure, back when their business was a lead, you may have courted them with a lot of attention. Now that they have moved through the pipeline and became a customer, though, how much time and effort do you and your sales team dedicate to really learning about the company and understanding the customer’s ongoing behavior?

Winning new customers—especially in the B2B world—requires a significant investment. And losing hard won customer relationships is doubly expensive. It not only requires replacing lost customer revenue, but the loss means dealing with the potential fallout of your reputation, especially when a competitor takes your customers.

So where does that leave you? Many companies have data rich enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) systems brimming with information. By leveraging a modern survey application, tied into your back-end systems, your sales team can become the conduit to your company’s unbelievably high level of understanding of your customers and their behaviors. This allows you to stand out from the competitors in all new ways.

To maximize the impact of survey apps for mobile devices, here are some things to consider:

Create a profile of your ideal customer.

Your company’s sales reps should know how to identify the ideal customer. Does the customer participate in your promotions? Do they meet your branding standards? Are they cross selling and up selling your products? How does their behavior and performance compare to customers of a similar profile? (For instance, customers that are big box stores should only be compared to like businesses, and not to small distributors.)

Make sure sales reps understand desired behavior changes.

Once you’ve created a profile of the ideal customer, your sales reps should focus on specific target behaviors to try to modify to move each customer toward those goals. For example—Does the customer include your brand or offerings on their website and/or store window display?

Use a smart phone.

The smart phone is the ultimate business tool because it can do everything (including make phone calls) and at a low cost. Surveys as web apps can be effective too, but they lack the comprehensive capability of a mobile device. With a properly flexible survey app you can push customer-based surveys to your smart phones and unleash the power of characteristics like GPS, camera, alerts and so on.

A picture tells a thousand words.

A challenge in wholesale distribution is that even with a distributed or remote salesforce, executives have a limited ability to physically see or inspect customers, especially on a regular basis. A good survey app will allow for photo enablement—giving you eyes and ears on the street to ensure the environment your products are being sold into—and from—meet your quality standards. If the customer keeps your products stocked on the highest shelves, out of reach of the retail customer or the warehouse personnel responsible for picking orders, you could get overlooked.

You can remedy this neglect, though. Have your sales rep tour the store or warehouse, and attach a photo to a survey question about the physical accessibility of your goods.

Make surveys part of your culture.

To know your customer is to love your customer. We believe this wholeheartedly. Get buy-in from your sales reps about the kinds of questions you should ask. Then, make surveys a required part of the sales process. To be clear, this isn’t to say that all questions need to be asked of every customer on each encounter, but the right survey app will allow you to learn their requirements. If you make surveys part of your DNA. you can have the most informed sales team in your industry.

Provide your customer with the survey app, too.

It’s one thing to have your sales reps answer questions based on their own observations, but a great survey app with mobile and push notifications can provide a great means to gently coax information from your customers—and engender uncommon loyalty.

Surveys should be integrated with your ERP or CRM system.

Great surveys can be designed to capture any information you want—including non-financial or non-transactional data. With survey that’s integrated with back office systems, you’ll be able to generate meaningful reports that will show you the correlation between desired behaviors and sales results.

xkzero believes that the most successful sales people are confident, informed and equipped with the best technology.

Consider the power of surveys as you create your next marketing plan. What you learn might surprise you, and the increased profits and marketshare will have you making surveys new part of your business DNA.

What Makes the Best Mobile Sales App for Wholesale Distribution

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail
How to choose the best mobile sales app

How to choose the best mobile sales app to support your wholesale distribution company

What makes the best mobile sales app for wholesale distribution?

There is not one single app that would ever qualify as being the best mobile sales app to satisfy every customer. However, by following a few simple guidelines you can select the right app or apps that will make the most sense for youand bring new value to your distribution business.

Whatever your goals may beopening new revenue streams, reducing administrative labor, or simply improving the experience of doing business with youyou want to make the right choice.

These are the major things to consider in order to select the best mobile sales app for your wholesale distribution business:
1)
 Focus on creating a great user experience. 2) Be sure to meet the needs of the individual user. 3) Smartly address your back-end system (ERP/CRM) integration needs. 4) Select your devices (iOS, Android, Windows…) after you’ve determined how you’ll derive value. 5) Make sure your solution has the flexibility and customizability you need to scale and grow.

 #1 – Create a great user experience.

Mobile is all about replacing previously manual or antiquated processes with smart phone or tablet technology, but swapping out paper or fax machines with a smart phone app alone will not do it. In order to have great success (what else would you want) you’ll need to make sure to create nothing less than a great user experience. A great user experience means giving your sales people a tool they love so much it makes them want to turn to the app again and again. And a great starting point is a clean, intuitive interface.

# 2 – Meet the needs of the individual user.

Aberdeen Group said in a published report called “Mobile ERP: Taking ROI Into Your Own Hands,” “When ERP mobile apps are tailored to meet the needs of the individual or role in the organization, that is when you achieve high levels of adaptation.”

Besides creating a great user interface, your mobile sales app should be able to cater to individual needs like access to data and task level permissions. When evaluating the best mobile sales app for your wholesale distribution business be sure to understand whether or not you can control access to sensitive dataand whether or not you can control the types of activities that can be performed on an individual basis.

For instance, at a trade show, some users may have permission to add a new customer on the fly, but others may not. Some sales reps may be able to override pricing on a quote, and others may not. Get a clear understanding on your user access needs, and research the flexibility of security options with the app you’re considering.

# 3 – ERP / CRM / back-end system integration

Integration to back-end systems like ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) or accounting software creates major value for a distributor in terms of labor efficiency and error reduction. Some apps offer no system integration which means any tasks you do or data you input with your standalone app you will likely have to repeat in your back-end system. Also, no system integration means your sales representatives will not have access to meaningful information like inventory availability, and open sales order status.

If a pre-existing integration into your ERP for your app is not available, industry veteran Alex Bratton says to plan for about a six month project on customizing that piece alone. Of course, if the integration is available out of the box, then you could be up and running overnight.

# 4 – Choose the hardware and mobile operating system that suits your needs.

Many companies do this in the opposite order. The owner or sales manager of a distribution company might say, “My people mostly have Androids, so I need an app that will work on those devices.” It’s all fine and good to limit your selection of mobile sales apps only to those that work on your current phones—but only if the app is capable of delivering the kind of compelling return on investment (ROI) you have in mind for your business.

If you’re serious about transforming the experience of doing business with you, a better course of action will be to first find the app or apps that are up to the needed tasks, then equip your team with the phones or tablets that on which they run. If your goal is creating differentiation, the value is in the appnot in the choice of devices.

# 5 – Customizability–packaged solutions versus custom built apps

If you’re buying an app from an online app storesomething that is available to any businessincluding your competition, the likelihood that you’re creating really unique differentiation is lessened. However, you will find that there are packaged solutions that are highly configurablepre-packaged solutions that can be tailored to your specific business rules. Packaged apps tend to be lower in price, and faster to implement. They come with less risk. Truly custom apps will tend to cost more money, but may provide the big difference you’re looking for. Vet your app developers carefully if you’re going that route.

More mobile resources for distributors:

To learn how xkzero can help empower your sales team and processes with mobile enabled ERP, contact us at info@xkzero.com, call 847-416-2009 or visit us on the Internet at www.xkzero.com.

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail