Management + Systems

Jayne Hill, business development manager at VECTA – the Sales Intelligence and CRM software specialists, looks at the benefits of Sales Intelligence software and how it can help fastener distributors recognise their customers’ needs.

Is it time to outmanoeuvre the competition and increase your share of customer spend? Ultimately business growth drives us all, whether that’s new customer acquisition, the procurement of fresh leads or focusing on retention of current and revival of lapsed clients. It’s well documented that the most cost-effective and productive growth strategy is concentrating on your existing customer base – but in fast moving business sectors which route should you take with technology to drive that?

It depends very much on what you are looking to achieve for your business. A Business Intelligence (BI) solution will help to give you a general overview of the business, often in report format, whereas Sales Intelligence (SI) is positioned to help enhance sales growth, efficiency and self-sufficiency.

For both solutions having a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of your customer’s needs – gaining a thorough awareness of their business, seasonal sales trends, ethos, purchasing habits, patterns and the personalities within the organisation – are now a prerequisite. Acquiring and managing the necessary customer intelligence requires some consideration in parallel with the management, and also with the use and sharing of information already within the business.

A standard BI tool delivers data in report format but it’s important to remember that sales growth requires more than figures on a spreadsheet, and that those reports still need work to access the necessary sales actions – particularly where speed is crucial. Using SI will signpost actions and opportunities and remove the need for trawling and comparing spreadsheets and reports. Instant bespoke sales ‘actions’ and ‘alerts’ are presented onscreen (mobile or PC) ensuring teams are more efficient and better informed.

For a fast moving environment with strong competition, it’s also vital to have a central point for data collection, sales planning and the associated reporting – especially when working with a sizeable customer base. Imagine the impact on sales results if you had immediate access to accurate hard facts relating to sales and margins and instant visibility of exactly what was discussed last time a client was contacted. The value of seeing detailed information about customers’ previous purchases – especially what they didn’t buy and what they could be buying. The positive impact becomes evident quickly and the customer recognises that your business really understands their needs.

Integrate SI and CRM and you enable proactive and highly focused management and sales activity to deliver tangible efficiencies through optimisation of customer relationships and understanding buying trends and habits, all without spending hours and hours poring over piles of reports and spreadsheets. It’s an appealing thought to most MDs and sales directors.

Consider the scenario: A fastener distribution company, stocking tens of thousands of product lines with thousands of customers, notices a decline in turnover in a particular line but despite using BI reports it’s hard to pinpoint why. Integrated SI and CRM software provides instant alerts to gaps enabling an immediate response to the problem.

UK-based Orbital Fasteners Ltd can testify to the value of integrated Sales Intelligence and CRM having recognised the benefits with staggering results. “Using VECTA has enabled dramatic growth for us, as a result of acting upon the information VECTA feeds to us we have seen huge increases in our share of customer business. As an example, one customer group has grown from an average annual spend of circa GB£144,000 to a potential of GB£400,000 per annum.”

“Not only is VECTA helping us to increase business but it helps our customers too, using VECTA analysis is so quick and it is easy to check exactly what each customer buys. The information we can provide to them also allows them to efficiently manage and police their own purchasing – instilling even greater confidence in us as a supplier.”