Fater Case History

Problem

MARKETING AREA

• the presence of obsolete or inadequate tools increased the risk of incurring significant losses in both economic and productive terms.
• the large number of products in the catalog, the high number of customers and their different locations throughout the territory made effective planning, valid monitoring and correct analysis of all product promotions at the various points of sale extremely difficult. The lack of a centralized system for acquiring information prevented an overview.

SALES AREA

• the agents suffered and were negatively affected by the (excessively long) times required to create or modify customer master data. To carry out this type of operation it was in fact necessary to fill in paper forms destined for the central office where the persons in charge proceeded to enter the data;
• the absence of updated and easily consultable customer data slowed down and made the activity of the sales force less efficient and motivating, the reports were made available for consultation on a weekly basis and only in offline mode;
• the system for taking orders from customers was obsolete and totally inadequate for the company’s needs.

ADMINISTRATIVE AREA

the registration of passive invoices from abroad (therefore from countries where electronic invoicing is not yet mandatory or is only partially mandatory) was slow and highly susceptible to human error due to the lack of an automatic tool integrated with SAP.

Need
the problems encountered in the various company areas, highlighted very specific needs which would have required targeted interventions and a very high level of customization of the proposed solutions.
In particular, it was necessary:

• accurate and efficient management of workflows for the creation and modification of customer master data;
• a tool for the management and real-time consultation of contracts with related price lists;
• the development of an efficient, modern and integrated system with SAP ERP, for order management;
  – a system for acquiring and consulting data relating to current or planned promotions with customers;
• the development of a tool capable of speeding up, automating and simplifying the registration of passive invoices from abroad.

Goals

• improve the efficiency of the marketing area by providing innovative solutions to automate the collection of information and optimize the quality and quantity of data made available;
• modernize and speed up all systems for entering, modifying and consulting information on customers and contracts, guaranteeing full integration with SAP ERP;
• automate and streamline order management;
• automate the system for receiving and registering passive invoices, eliminating the probability of human error.

Project description
as already emerged in the analysis phase and subsequently in the definition of the objectives, it was necessary to develop ad hoc solutions with a very high level of customization. The projects carried out for this purpose required a considerable effort both in terms of the quality of the resources put in place for the development and integration of different solutions, and in terms of time spent on research, analysis and testing of the proposed solutions. The results obtained have been more than appreciable, consolidating a relationship of trust and collaboration now more than ten years old.

Implemented solution
SFR Project: the development and implementation of SFR essentially translated into an accentuated customization of our Customer Relationship Management solution, ZenCRM with particular attention to the functions of the Sales area. This made it possible to resolve all the requests relating to efficient management of contracts with related price lists.

CCMD Project: has made possible a refined and advanced management of workflows intended for the creation or modification of customer master data, all fully integrated with SAP ERP

FAST Order Management Project:it is through the development and implementation of FAST that it has been possible to radically innovate and speed up the order taking and management system, allowing sales force agents to enter orders (from a PC, mobile phone or tablet), and to check at the same time upon creation of the order, therefore in real time, the stock availability of the ordered product(s) with an indication of the relative delivery times. FAST Order Management is also integrated with SAP.

CMO Platform Project: the platform that was developed ad hoc for the acquisition of data relating to promotions at the various points of sale integrated with the company’s internal business intelligence platform.

Extraction of Payable Invoices indexes: this project was developed ad hoc also providing for integration with SAP ERP to meet the need to automatically record passive invoices from abroad. The new system, which has replaced the old manual invoice registration system, provides for an advanced, evolved OCR reading system, in free form or template logic

Company areas
Administration, finance and control / Order management / Strategic Management and ICT / Production and technical area

Benefits obtained
The efforts made to achieve the set objectives have produced significant benefits, not only in favor of the company areas directly affected by the change, but extended to the entire company context with an improvement in efficiency levels and work quality.

In particular, the introduction of modern, innovative and above all automatic systems have streamlined and speeded up processes and all those so-called ‘routine’ operations, to give more space to activities of a strategic nature, the latter validly supported by the introduction of analysis tools efficient and reporting tools that has finally become usable quickly and in real time, with updated and therefore easily shareable data.

The most visible benefits were recorded in the levels of efficiency and performance of the sales force, which was positively affected by the replacement of old, obsolete and underperforming tools with modern, rapid tools in step with business and market needs.