CRM for Distribution

Announcing CRM for Distribution – General Availability!

In today’s competitive climate, selling your products and services is more challenging than ever before.  CRM for Distribution is a CRM solution that is tailored specifically for the Wholesale Distribution Industry.  This product enables you to get a clear picture of what your customers are buying and your sales teams are selling without having to track through multiple systems.   CRM for Distribution puts all of your mission critical information about your prospects, customers, suppliers and sales teams at your fingertips and is natively integrated with Microsoft Outlook and Office 365.

CRM for Distribution is a Microsoft Certified Solution Pack that is built upon the most comprehensive CRM solution available, Microsoft Dynamics CRM.   It melds powerful sales force automation capabilities with fully integrated, real time data from your ERP system.   Your sales teams can rollup, or drill down into detailed data by customer, vendor, sales rep or supplier – all the way to the individual line item details, allowing them to build a holistic picture of an account or opportunity.

CRM for Distribution is available on desktops, laptops and mobile devices including the iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Smartphones and Tablets.   For more details on CRM for Distribution and what it can do for your business, please click here.

Some of the key features in CRM for Distribution are:

• Dashboards, Charts & Reports – Access real time, mission critical data in a fashion that is consumable and actionable
• Opportunity Tracking & Forecasting  – By Item, Item Groups, Vendors and Suppliers
• Cost to Serve –  Get into a Net Margin State of Mind and begin to track and understand your true “cost to serve” your customers
• Customer Ranking – Direct your valuable sales resources to the accounts that you want to focus on
• Quote, Order, & Sales History – Understand what your customers have bought or quoted in the past and their propensity to buy in the future
• Invoice Tracking & Invoice Aging Detail
• Expense Reporting
• Built in Business Process Automation

• Fully integrated with ERP – Customers, Ship To’s, Customer Notes, Contacts, Vendors, Suppliers
• Items, Components and Item Groups, Quotes, Orders, Invoices and Sales History, Pricing Libraries, Users

Over the next few weeks we will publish a blog series that will dive into some of these individual features.  In this post we will dive into the Dashboards, Charts & Reporting capabilities.

A Visual Perspective

The CRM for Distribution product has much to offer in terms of sales information for the Distribution Industry.  CRM for Distribution collects and organizes your mission critical ERP data and melds it with CRM to provide users a holistic view of your business.  All of this data is presented in an easy to read and visually pleasing format that allows your sales team to take action.

Dashboards

Dashboards are one of the very powerful features within Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  Dashboards offer a large canvas to display charts, views and many other custom items.  CRM for Distribution takes full advantage of this feature and displays colorful and informative charts that provide a powerful and unique insight into your business.  And since the Dashboard is set to load on the start of CRM, all your data is available the instant the program begins.

Main CRM Dashboard

Let’s talk about the CRM for Distribution Main CRM Dashboard.  Here’s a sample screen shot:

Right off the bat you can see that these charts and graphs look very different from the traditional MS Dynamics CRM charts.  The charts for CRM for Distribution have been enhanced using Microsoft Chart Controls.  This offers a wide variety of shapes, colors, and features so your data never looks dull.

Below is a description of each item on the main dashboard. You will see that the main dashboard contains all of the relevant information to help manage your business successfully.  Each of these items also has extensive drill down and charting capabilities.

Open Opportunities

The largest display chart on the Main Dashboard is the Sales Pipeline.  It tracks your open opportunity’s as they progress through the sales process.

Customers YTD Profit

CRM for Distribution follows the important idea of tracking your customers’ based on profitability in addition to sales volume. We will explore the Cost to Serve feature of the product in greater detail in a separate blog post.

Open Quotes by Customer

The Main Dashboard also displays the Top 5 Customers with the Highest Open Quote dollar amounts.  This is useful for Sales Reps so they can direct their attention to certain customers that may need attention to turn those quotes into orders.

Cost To Serve Dashboard

One of the most unique Dashboards of CRM for Distribution is the Cost to Serve Display.   This Dashboard is based on the expense activity by customer.  You can see the top 5 most profitable and least profitable customers including the activity expense breakdown for each one (look for upcoming post on Cost to Serve functionality).

Expenses by Activity

The Expense by Activity chart not only displays the Customers with the Top 5 highest expenses, but also breakdown the dollar value by expense.  You can see exactly where your company may be spending too much in travel or appointment time and make changes accordingly.

Top/Bottom 5 Most Profitable Cost To Serve

The Most Profitable Cost to Serve charts are where the Customer Profit information truly shines.  It shows you exactly which customer relationships are the most profitable to your company.  The charts also highlight areas where you may be losing money.

Sales History Dashboard

This dashboard provides access to the historical sales and profitability of your Customers.  In addition to using the Sales History for Cost To Serve, the software also uses Sales History for a built-in Customer Ranking System.  The rankings are all customizable and the charts allow you to view your changes graphically.  This Dashboard also has a Delinquent Accounts chart, which shows you accounts with the highest outstanding Invoice totals calculated by Invoice Aging.