Statewide

Statewide Independent Wholesaler's Food Service (FMCG) division have recently moved their sales force from paper based ordering to MiniSell via HP Ipaq 2210 Pocket PCs.

The food service (FMCG) industry is highly competitive and requires fast order turnaround in order to supply the thousands of customers that Statewide services on the island state of Tasmania, Australia.

Before implementing MiniSell Statewide's reps would need to call into their offices in Launceston, Hobart or Devonport twice a day to drop off orders and look up unknown product codes. Now these same reps synchronise their handhelds via their Bluetooth mobile phones 2 to 3 times each day, sending a constant stream of orders directly into Statewide's sales order processing system. This change has meant that the reps can devote more time to sales appointments and therefore generate a greater volume of sales.

Statewide has a wide and varied customer base which ranges from school canteens, corner stores and take-away food stores to hospitals, pubs and restaurants. The typical number of orders taken by each rep each day varying between 20 and 30 and their value from $10 to over $1,000.

Statewide supply over 13,000 items including everything from fresh produce to tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. Prior to the implementation of MiniSell it was difficult to order products that a particular customer had not ordered before, as orders were based upon templates derived from each customer's history for the past 2 months.

Template ordering has been retained in MiniSell but now its very easy to search any other product type the customer requires via the MiniSell search facility. This has eliminated the need for the rep to check with the office or carry vast folders of product lists.

Pricing structures in the Food Service industry tend to be very dynamic, however weekly specials, contract pricing, price lists and last purchase price have all been incorporated into the MiniSell database for each customer (as well as the ability to over-ride all of them!). Consequentially the rep instantly knows the margin they are making on each product as well as the margin for the whole order.

Statewide is the first Australian Food Service Company to utilise MiniSell for their field ordering personnel, but based on their success to date we're sure they won't be the last.