essential 10 steps checklist

Essential 10 step checklist for growing your business online

www.webconnect-sbo.com

ECOMMERCEDESIGNED FORSAP BUSINESS ONE

WebConnect is the missing piece of the puzzle for your online business


Hi there, Thank you for downloading this checklist and taking an important step towards exceeding your growth targets in 2015 through an enhanced online presence.

You may be a importer / distributor of products that is looking to reduce expenses, move more stock and expand without putting on more staff...

You may also need to manage spare parts, service and warranty. For so many distributors, online sales and marketing can be seen as a highly complex area with so many moving parts. It is usually the thing that gets put off, while at the same time it is the one thing that can deliver the greatest returns.

However, like so many businesses that have experienced growth in the past year, in the back of your mind you are wondering if you could really handle an influx of extra orders.

It seems so hard to hold things together with the orders you already have with disparate systems. You know that repetitive manual efforts and business reporting needs to be addressed prior to any growth.

Now is the time to pull everything together and position yourself for a record breaking year in 2015.

But the question is:

• How do you bring your inventory, accounting, and CRM and Marketing systems all into the one place where everything seamlessly connects to each other?

• How do you grow your sales channels without raising your relative expenses?

• How do you keep on top of slow moving inventory items that take up space and tie up your cash?

• How do you make it easy for potential customers to find you and when they do, spend more?

We take companies just like you from scratching their head over these concepts to seeing a clear path to enjoying the many rewards of a mature online presence.


There are common themes we have observed in the companies that looked to us to improve their online presence:

• How to save time and reduce expenses by pulling all of of the separate systems that currently do not talk to each other into one place.

• Reducing the cost of ownership for sales reps.

• Moving beyond being just a Wholesaler selling to retailers; expanding into new untapped sales channels.

• Providing higher visibility of products online and removing barriers to purchase.

• Increasing the overall spend through automated upsell or cross sells during the online purchase. Taking away the reliance on sales people actioning this important growth tactic.

Does the diagram below reflect your picture right now? Don’t worry, there is a way out of this...


As you may have experienced, streamlining your business processes and improving your online presence can certainly boost your growth and profitability. However, we recommend establishing a true picture of where you are now first.The quick questionnaire that follows, highlights the key areas you need to assess to uncover the opportunities in front of you.

Once you have this information down you will be ready to start exploring options.


1. What is your growth target over the next 2 years? Revenue / ProfitCurrent Average TurnoverHow many SKUs?

2. Is there integration between your Inventory, Accounting, Sales and Marketing systems? » Calculate the hours spent by

staff manually keying information and taking orders by phone.

» Number of staff * Hours each per week * AVG salary 50 weeks per year

3. Clarity on business metrics » Number of manually updated

spreadsheets » Hours spent updating » How accurate are they? » Can you Trust them?

4. Do you have sales resources? Sales person performance: » Avg return per sales person » Return for top sales person » Return for poor performer

Sales Agents » How many Agents do you have? » What would it mean to you if they

had access to inventory and product information and place orders?

» How do you track their performance and rewards?

5. Sales Process » How easy is it to place an order? » What barriers / costs would you

like to remove » Do they have easy access to

current available products? » Do you have processes to upsell? » How do you educate / train

customers to use it?


6. How would you rate yourself in Inventory Management? 1 - 5 (5 being positive) » Multiple warehouses » Bin management » Landed costs – accuracy of cost

of sales at an SKU level

7. Is slow moving / dead stock impacting your cashflow? » Current $ value » Ways of moving 50% of this

quickly

8. How would you rate yourself in Service Management? 1 - 5 (5 being positive) » Warranty management – claims

and repairs » Service Calls » Service Quotes and Orders –

(WebConnect can extend this out into the field)

» Installation

9. How do you manage your production process? » Bill of Materials - Sales /

Production Kits » Materials Requirement Planning

(MRP – what to buy or make and when )

» Quality Assurance

10. Online Presence » How do new customers find you? » What would it mean to you if sales

were increased by 10% - 30%


Achieve a higher return from your businessThe first step is of course to clean up your back office so that all of the orders are processed smoothly without much manual effort. You will also need access to reports that give insights as to how the business is performing at any point in time.

Once you have streamlined the back end of the business and consolidated your systems, it is now time to scale and focus on the front end… Sales.

Even though your inventory, accounting and CRM are now linked, the new bottleneck to address is usually how to increase the effectiveness of your current sales resources and channels.

If you are like many people we see each day, then you may be wondering about solutions. Here are some questions with tips to consider:

Q

Q

How do I move beyond disparate systems and wasted hours of data entry to a single business solution that pulls everything together?

How do I unchain myself from the myriad of spreadsheets I depend on to work out?

tip

tip

Make sure the solution is proven to deliver the functionality you are after in one single system. Make sure you identify any gaps and resist having to plug them with Excel.

• How is my business performing?• When I need to replenish my stock - how do I know I am buying

the right items and quantities• What are my best selling items and are they profitable


Q

Q

How do I have visibility around who my suppliers, customers are and all the sales activity in one place. It would be great if I could see this wherever I am online. Is this possible?

How do I make it easy for my customers to log in and manage their account and place orders?

tip

tip

Yes. This is definitely possible. There are a number of cloud CRM solutions out there. But beware of their limitations of being able to be configured to suit your needs. Ensure that it is able to be fully integrated to other aspects of the business. Many businesses fall into the trap of rushing out to select a CRM first, but end up spending a fortune on configuring a system that is stand alone.

Make sure that whatever solution you choose is fully integrated with your accounting system and is mobile compatible. This will ensure your staff are not wasting time on needless admin tasks to keep the catalogue up to date and processing orders.

Q How do all my sales people and agents have visibility to the valuable information in CRM and Inventory system? Especially when they are on the road?

tipYou could spend potentially thousands on extra licenses and infrastructure to create remote access, or you could choose a more efficient and scalable solution. There are ways to provide them with everything they need without this cost:


If you resonate with any of the questions above then WebConnect is certainly one to consider. It provides a solution for each situation within a timeframe and budget that makes sense. However, there is one aspect that has not been mentioned so far which is the key to making any solution support the growth of your business. That is customisation.

In our experience, we have found that there is no such thing as one system fits all.

WebConnect has been created from the ground up to have a high degree of flexibility so that you can achieve the competitive advantage that you are after. We understand that every business is different and requires something that is unique to their situation.

This is why we have created an end to end solution that pulls everything together.

So, if you are looking to take advantage of the many opportunities that a connected online presence can deliver, we would be happy to arrange a private question and answer session to explore what this means for you.


You can contact us on 1300 093 226

or email Andrew at

[email protected]

Thank you!

essential 10 steps checklist

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