Following a recent customer site visit, I was really interested to see how Prima Cloud had integrated in to the business and is helping them grow and achieve process efficiency. The following observations stood out for me…
How JKL work
The business model is for the most part traditional Office Products dealer in terms of the products mix and distribution, with the support of a major wholesaler account. The business is essentially stockless too, which removes a layer of complexity. Where possible customers are encouraged to place orders via their online store and it’s estimated a 50/50 split online vs phone/email, so that’s a really healthy balance. Large customers typically have a core contract list, so pricing management in Prima was also key.
The Customer Service department are responsible for the daily business process, and the key users in the system. The Sales Team access the system for quotation purposes and receive relevant report figures, ensuring the proactive side of the sales process is focused on business growth and not administrative tasks.
Processing 100-150 orders a day, JKL need a process that involved as few user touches as possible throughout the order process.
Embracing the change
A real positive for Prima’s working partnership for the implementation was the team at JKL were ready for the change of system, and took as much training in advance as possible prior to the go live date in summer 2016. A Prima Coordinator at JKL was assigned from the outset, and this point of contact has been responsible for ensuring the team take their allocated training, and works with the Prima team to resolve any outstanding queries.
The key from the very start of the process was for JKL to incorporate as much automation in the daily business procedure as possible. The automation requirements for the order authorisation and purchasing and also the KPI reporting for the sales and management teams.
Prima working with JKL
So our team set about working with JKL pre and post install to improve the existing automation of Prima Cloud.
Following several service pack releases, the current functionality now allows detailed automation of the sales and purchase authorisation process.
From an order fulfilment perspective, the vast majority of JKL’s orders go to suppliers as Pick Wrap Label automatically, leaving a list of exceptions to process which are checked regularly, where the orders or products have fallen outside the framework of the automation rules.
This means that the Customer Service team can spend as little time as possible on the non value-adding task of order entry/process, and can focus on the delivery of excellent customer service.
Prima’s automated reports functionality allows the Sales and Management teams to be kept up to date on key sales and product information. The daily and weekly scheduling of the various spreadsheets gives stakeholders this KPI data when they need it.
Our ongoing partnership
In terms of the benefits realised so far, JKL Commercial Director Jenny Warner commented that the “Auto Purchase functionality has really helped speed up the order process, with less errors..”, and in particular “Contract Management through Prima has greatly improved my previous processes, giving me and the team much better control of customer pricing.”
Working with Prima going forward(like many of our customers), JKL continue to suggest product enhancements to help streamline the daily business process and also strengthen the automation features.
