The distribution world has transformed significantly since the last decade. The ever-growing business markets, technological progress and intense competition on customer retention are the prime reasons behind stimulation of this transformation. As a result, businesses in the present day are required to either adapt to the change or risk overall business success. The call for transformation have urged these businesses to be the most most innovative, cost-effective and thus the most customer centirc distributor available on the market. B2B transactions demand the same order fulfillment speed, ease and flexibility as e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. These established names have set standards due to which customers expectations have increased from every corner of the world. In order to survive, organisations need to adapt ways to drive operational efficiency, recognise barriers and make suitable provisions and optimise business processes.
A latest survey states, more than 80% of manufacturers and distributors process all the customer purchase orders manually. This literally means, handling at least 100 or more orders a day by going through thousand lines of data manually. It is not only time-consuming but an inefficient use of man power. Manual processes are highly prone to errors and expensive comparatively. With the obvious and proven benefits, sales order automation is the key to deliver value and sustain customer retention ratio.
There are many sales order processing solutions available but while determining which solution best suits your business, consider these three principles:
How it affects your Customer Base?
While customer retention being the core part of any sales transaction, the solution you choose should have a clear collaboration level with your customers. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is one such automation solution from SAP that receives a purchase order in one standard electronic format and further translates into a sales order. The solution should also be inbuilt with different options to accommodate different customer behaviours. For example, some may choose to print or fax while others would want to email their orders. Keeping different operational infrastructures in place, the automation solution must eliminate the need for duplicate efforts, meaning; your customers would understandably be reluctant to enter the same information on every order they make.
Diagrammatic Representation of a Sales Order Automation Process
Should you go for OCR or Non-OCR?
Not all automation solutions are built alike, some provide OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology while others provide non-OCR. The difference between the two is OCR captures critical order data whereas non-OCR captures printed or emailed orders in a standard electronic format. With 98% accuracy rate, OCR technology is less preferable as any dim mark or smudge may cause it to misread the data especially when working in unique data sets like part numbers or addresses. With 100% accuracy rate, non-OCR technology is more appropriate as it requires zero need for human verification. It directly transfers the data into company’s ERP system and automatically routes to the relevant sales channels with complete visibility. Orders are processed upto 95% faster with total precision reducing the order-to-cash cycle time and makes an efficient use of your staff letting them to focus on delivering superior customer service.
Is it Compatible with your Current Technology?
The solution you choose must seamlessly work with your existing technology; anything less would be a waste to invest your time and money. If you already have an ERP system installed, make sure the new automation technology integrate flawlessly within the present system.
Incorporating a sales order automation technology can significantly improve your efficiency and productivity of business processes. Taking the above factors into account, you can secure your business’s growth by innovating and adapting to technological demands.
Silver Touch Technologies provides a solution where you can consolidate all your sales order processing on a single platform called SAP Business One. To understand how SAP Business One can help improve, simplify and speed up your order-to-cash processes, click here. Call us on +44 – (0) 203-872-5140 or e-mail at info@silvertouchtech.co.uk today.
