Wilson Consumer Products ("WCP") is one of the largest distributors of premium health & beauty and grocery products in New Zealand. The company distributes over 5,000 products from brands such as Hersheys, Guylian, Blistex, Just for Men and Australis to retail stores, supermarkets and pharmacies throughout the country with territory managers visiting 250 to 350 stores in a two to eight week cycle.

Using the Mobile Field Force Solution from Quofore WCP has experienced field force productivity increases by 25 percent.

WCP had used mobile software to manage their field operations for over a decade but according to John Hall, Finance and Administration Manager at WCP, frustration with the incumbent system’s functionality and reliability forced them to revert to a paper-based system.

"Our territory managers were spending at least two hours at the end of the day filling out orders, collating information and then faxing information to head office. It was an expensive and time-consuming process," Hall said.

"Our field staff needed a convenient, centralized system to record distribution and ranging information, order products, manage promotions, and analyse sales data to make better informed business decisions. We needed a comprehensive solution in order to stay competitive and provide detailed feedback to the companies we represent."

After extensive evaluation of a number of alternatives WCP selected a mobile solution from Quofore. The Quofore Mobile Field Force Solution caters for field workers, field managers and support and system administration staff.

WCP’s territory managers in both the health & beauty and grocery divisions use the Quofore Mobile Client, on i-mate JASJAR handheld devices. It enables them to perform such tasks as input sales orders, capture images of products, perform retail surveys, distribution and range checks and check product availability and price lists.

"So far we’ve had a 25 percent improvement with productivity in terms of the time available to field staff, which is quite considerable. The feedback from staff is that when they get home they don’t have two hours worth of paperwork to do. They’ve been able to complete all the processes of their job throughout the day via the ease of their PDAs and sync that information immediately," said Hall.

Field Managers have noticed improvements too. The Quofore Management desktop application provides tools for managing field workers schedules, monitoring activity, managing field surveys, analyzing sales and for communicating with the field instantly.

"Previously when head office managers wanted pricing or distribution surveys completed, it took three to four weeks from the time of distributing the survey to the field to when the survey was completed and returned to the head office for further summary. Now these tasks are quickly completed within a couple of days, enabling further efficiencies across the entire business. With the completion time dramatically reduced, the information is much more up-to-date," said Hall.

"It can also support ad-hoc activities easily. The system is really flexible, we can create new surveys, activities or objectives quickly and easily and distribute these to the field for immediate completion. If the brands we represent request new information or reports from us, then we can meet those demands very easily."

WCP’s retail customers have benefited from better customer service and improvements in dispatch and delivery time. For example, deliveries to the South Island have improved by two to three days. With the Quofore solution integrated to WCP’s accounting system and trading partner systems there is immediate transfer of order and product data. The Quofore Workbench supports multiple configurations and provides WCP with the components required to create user interfaces, set up synchronization profiles and integrate sales data with other systems.

In addition to the improved business processes the new system has extensive reporting capabilities. The reports that can be accessed by the territory and office-based managers have enabled WCP to identify new opportunities for products in the market place and also provide detailed analysis to the companies WCP represents.

"The reports that we’ve received out of the system have been very powerful. We have the ability to quickly analyse market trends & opportunities and react to those very quickly. This is essential in today’s business world as we can better understand the market from the reporting we’re getting out of the Quofore system," Hall said.