SANFRUT-Trade: The first results of sales management of distributors with Lawson e-Sales

The BSC company and SANFRUT-Trade LLC which is among the leading Russian manufacturers of juice products signed in October, 2010 the agreement on the implementing solution Lawson e-Sales for sales management of distributors. A project objective – to provide collecting and the subsequent analysis of up-to-date and consistent data on shipments to distributors (Sell In) and further sales of products of SANFRUT-Trade in outlets (Sale Out) in the unified information system.

At the moment for the Russian juice market key continue to remain two trends – consolidation of the market and gain of fight for regional consumers. Top four is Wimm-Bill-Dann, PepsiCo, Multon and Coca-Cola — controls about 80% of the market. Further almost equal positions in rating are taken by the largest regional players – SANFRUT-Trade (Perm) and Gardens of the Don region (Volgograd). Transfer of competitive struggle for the consumer from the central regions of the country to regions demands both correction of marketing strategy, and improvement of a system of distribution from players. The last – is impossible without existence of complete and up-to-date information about to what outlets the goods, in what quantity, what dynamics of sales, etc. go.

Therefore in 2010 the management of SANFRUT-Trade made the decision on control automation by sales of distributors. A project objective – to provide collecting and the subsequent data analysis on secondary sales (more than 120 distributors, geography of sales - the Urals, the Volga region, Northwest, Central and Southern Russia, the Black Earth, Western Siberia) within the unified information system.

According to Alexander Serebrov, the Head of service IT, SANFRUT-Trade company, when choosing the information solution for sales management of distributors three criteria – functionality of a system, implementation cost and presence of the implemented projects at system provider were key. According to the results of market research specialists of SANFRUT-Trade stopped on three "working" options, namely: the solution ECOD Distribution of Comarch company, own solution of Corus Consulting (the partner of Comarch in Russia) and the solution Lawson e-Sales: Sales management of distributors from BSC company.

"Based on the detailed analysis we stopped the choice on Lawson e-Sales from BSC company", - Alexander Serebrov tells. – "At the solution ECOD, at comparable initial investments, per 3-5 years total cost of ownership appeared a system many times above. As for the solution of Corus Consulting, there was open a question on the implemented projects here. Thus, on a combination of all three criteria "functionality-cost-experience" the offer of BSC was the most advantageous".

Lawson e-Sales system: Sales management of distributors allows to obtain data on shipments to distributors and to their sales of products in outlets "today for yesterday" — it gives the chance to quickly monitor a situation in the market and to plan shipments and sales. Besides, this solution is implemented based on Web technologies - it provides quick and uninterrupted access in the system of an unlimited number of users (all work with distributors is carried out via the Internet browser) on all geography of distribution and also saves from need to set specialized software on platforms of distributors.

In April, 2011 the solution Lawson e-Sales for automated management of sales of distributors became known of start in commercial operation. The implementation project of the Lawson e-Sales system started in the middle of November, 2010 and in February, 2011 consultants of BSC jointly with specialists of SANFRUT-Trade already connected to the Lawson e-Sales system of the first distributors.

"Despite deadlines, an implementation project of the solution on sales management of distributors of Lawson e-Sales passed very successfully: all assigned tasks are carried out just in time", - Alexander Lesnikov, the Project manager of implementation from SANFRUT-Trade notes, - Results of work with BSC company exceeded all our expectations. The project is executed more than qualitatively: we can independently connect new distributors to a system, it is convenient and easy to create reports, information is provided practically in any cuts: on trade commands, sales representatives, outlets, commodity a position (SKU), etc.".

As representatives of SANFRUT-Trade note, the Lawson e-Sales system allowed "digitize" not only internal processes in a chain "Marketing-sales-finance", and work of distributors on the basis of the measured indicators (KPI) available on a daily basis.