Radiant Group

Radiant Lighting Group

The Challenge

Radiant Group, comprising Radiant Lighting (fixtures and lamps) and Radiant Electrical is a wholly owned subsidiary of South Ocean Holdings. Radiant distributes lighting throughout Southern Africa and has ISO9001 certification for its quality management practices.

The Radiant sales team calls on clients to market its domestic and commercial lighting product lines. Radiant were looking for ways to streamline the sales process and increase the professionalism of their sales team in front of their clients.

Previously, while at the customer's premises, the salesperson would have to phone the Radiant call centre to get product pricing and availability in the various warehouses around South Africa. This could require multiple calls and consequent paper-based recording to complete the sales process. The result was no clear differentiation between themselves and their competitors in terms of the sales process as well as contributing to high costs of sales in a very competitive market.

The Solution

Using mobilesales, a software application that runs on a cell phone, the salesperson requests the required product pricing and availability from Radiant’s enterprise server system Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 Financials.

The information is rapidly displayed on the cell phone for the salesperson and client to make immediate decisions. Since only selected and relevant information on clients or product pricing is retained on the mobile device the risk of exposing confidential information is radically reduced. All of the communication between the cell phone and the server is secured by Integr8or Mobile Application Server from Mobile Gateway.

Functionality of the solution includes:

·The ability to search for products by product code.

·The ability to allocate a specific configuration and colour to a product.

· A display of all stock, meeting the above search criteria, by quantity and specific warehouse location.

·The facility to restrict sales representatives from placing orders on warehouses in regions in which they do not operate.

·The facility to restrict sales representatives from ordering products for customers who are not entitled to purchase certain line items.

·The ability to query when an out-of-stock product is due in, specific to a warehouse.

·The ability to place the order on a specific warehouse that either has the required quantity of stock for that order or is the closest to the customer, ensuring a significantly reduced delivery time of that order.

·A phone-based order form displaying all products ordered with pricing, including and excluding VAT.

·The ability to select the mode of delivery of the order to the customer, i.e.:

1. Courier,

2. Freight,

3. Collect by the customer,

4. Delivery by in-house delivery service.

Access is controlled by allowing only authorized mobile users to access the system. This authority can easily be removed should the need arise if, for example, a salesperson leaves the employ of Radiant or a cell phone is lost or stolen.

The Benefits

•The cost of sales is lowered through the reduction or elimination of cell phone calls to and from the call centre.
•The call centre staff are freed up for other administration and sales support tasks.
•Furthermore, the sales staff now appear far more professional to their clients and can close business much faster.

mobilesales provides:

· a single point of accountability (the salesperson);

· a streamlined and automated business process with the benefits of higher productivity both in front of the customer and in the back office;

· additional security from a mobile solution that reduces the risk of confidential information being compromised on mobile devices out of the office; and

· the ability for both the client and Radiant to manage their stock better. The client has a full understanding of what stock is to be delivered to his business and as such can set expectations to their customers. Radiant now has the ability to be alerted the moment a specific item is out-of-stock and order accordingly from the manufacturer.

The Conclusion

The Mobile Gateway solution, mobilesales, reduces the cost of sale, improves productivity, improves the professional image presented by the salesperson to the client and, most importantly from a business perspective, improves profitability to the company.

About Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 Financials

Microsoft Dynamics™ AX 4.0, an adaptable, global business-management solution that works like and with familiar Microsoft^® software and helps organizations gain a competitive advantage. Through the use of Web services and other enhancements, the highly anticipated new release delivers a complete enterprise resource planning (ERP) package to automate and streamline processes across a company’s financials, customer relationships, business services, human resources and the supply chain.

https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jun06/06-12MicrosoftDynamicsAX40PR.mspx