The latest guide by Sales-i providing expert insights on the top 7 reasons why your company needs business intelligence, this time targeted towards wholesalers. For more information and to read our other ebooks visit http://www.sales-i.com

1. 7 SIGNS
YOU NEED BUSINESS
INTELLIGENCE
WHOLESALERS
A publication of

2. Wholesalers are overrun with reams of data that
they simply aren’t extracting any value from.“
“
The wholesale industry has played one of the most pivotal
roles in the distribution network for well over 100 years,
yet the challenges wholesalers face today are raising the
stakes as many fight to maintain and increase their share of
the market. Like many businesses, wholesale companies
are heavily dependent on striking a profitable balance
between supply and demand. In an industry worth billions,
wholesalers are set on cementing their position within their
markets and continuing to grow their businesses.
For the most part however, wholesalers are striving to ensure
effective business management and growth while juggling
the constant need to improve processes and streamline
costs. Of course, as any business grows, so too does
the complexity of its inner workings. The daily interaction
between wholesaler, customer and supplier is often tested
as many companies struggle to manage growth.
A growing business means a growing data set, from invoices to customer
interactions and sales data, wholesalers in particular are overrun with
reams of data that they simply aren’t extracting any value from. This is
just one of the sure fire signs that you need software in place to better
manage your wholesale business from top to bottom.
That is exactly where Business Intelligence (BI) can step in, taking
complete control of data analysis and churning out valuable information
and unmissable sales opportunities. BI solutions automate the task
of analyzing data, providing a better understanding of company
performance, creating a proactive sales culture offering a complete
customer view for the entire business and streamlining the sales and
marketing process.
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7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers

3. 1. Reliance on manual systems
One of the biggest challenges facing wholesalers is managing
their company data. Many wholesalers continue to rely heavily
on paper-based systems to take orders, manage customers
and do business. Systems like these often demand huge
investments of time and effort to manage any sort of account.
Being so labor intensive makes them incredibly unwieldy when
it comes to costs too.
But there is a multitude of software systems available today
that can manage all manner of processes. From managing
customer data to monitoring inventory and identifying sales
opportunities, technology has moved on leaps and bounds
of late and can automate almost every process within your
business.
BI will automate your entire sales process, from collating
customer records to smarter management of sales history and
customer buying behavior and sales patterns. Feeding upon
the transactional information stored within your company’s
ERP or accounting software, it can monitor every transaction
before identifying trends and highlighting every additional sales
opportunity with very little effort on a user’s part.
7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers
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4. 2. Changing customer demand
Customer requirements are consistently changing and particularly so in times of economic
strife. Customer demands can change almost overnight in an effort to look after their own
business needs and protect their cash flow.
As customer needs change, any company needs to be responsive in order to retain
their existing customers. The key here is to increase sales and marketing spend, not cut
back as some might. As competition increases between wholesalers, the need for better
customer insight and a more proactive approach to selling will soon become evident.
Without a complete view of your customers’ changing purchasing behavior, no wholesaler
can remain competitive in a fluctuating market.
7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers
A BI tool will automatically sift through your sales and transactional data before presenting
you with targeted marketing opportunities to outsell your competition. If customer
demands are changing for economic reasons, why not offer a valuable link sell opportunity
or promotion for a complementary product? Or if they are buying regular line items from
you, a BI tool is smart enough to preempt their need to reorder and you can swoop in well
before the competition to get a deal signed off. Your customers will appreciate the thought
and will likely return to you in the future.

5. 3. Increasing competition
In a flourishing market, intense rivalry soon develops between wholesalers
as new businesses continue to pop up almost daily. Competition is
no longer limited to a national problem, but an international one. The
increase in globalization has caused a surge in the number of wholesalers
operating within the international marketplace. As your customers seek
the best price, your overseas counterparts may be better positioned to
offer knockdown prices, tempting your customers to switch their loyalties.
To remain competitive, you must be competing on value. Price is
important, however supplying lifetime value to your customers will keep
them coming back for more. Offering product advice, suggestions, even
an article you think they may find useful all adds value. It keeps you front
of mind and ensures that your customers are thinking of you, not your
competition, when they need to reorder.
4. Need to streamline inventory
As in any business, managing your inventory is key. Storage costs money
and low margin items aren’t the best for your bottom line. Wholesalers
likely have thousands of line items, if not more, and the need to
distinguish the low margin items from the high margin items is key.
The ‘low price, low margin, high volume’ model simply won’t fly unless
you are an industry leader with a huge customer following that can
generate a healthy profit for you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that
selling at a high price for higher margins is the only way of doing
business, more that you need the insight to understand which of your
products produce the optimal amount of return.
Using a BI solution can help with the smarter management of your
extensive product range, particularly if you have thousands of line
items. Trawling your sales data, it will highlight your top grossing items,
your best and worst sellers and those that generate you the best profit
margin. With this level of awareness at your fingertips, wholesalers can
act accordingly to adjust or improve their sales approach. Whether this
may be attempting to minimize production costs, raising prices or even
discontinuing a poor performing product line, companies will be safe in
the knowledge that decisions have been made on fact and data, rather
than gut feelings.
To remain competitive, you must be competing on
value and not just price.“
“
A good BI solution will allow you to outsmart the competition at every
corner. Plotting a clear picture of any adverse competitor activity, you can
form your plan of attack and respond with tactical sales opportunities
based on fact that will ensure your customers remain yours.
7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers

6. 5. Performance management
As time goes on and business grows, it often becomes more
troublesome to manage employee and company performance as a
whole. Not only does the amount of data you harvest grow, but so
too does the size of your workforce. Managing their performance is
challenging at the best of times, but becomes even more difficult as you
expand.
Every company will benefit from having good people, but managing their
development, workloads and performance is often a time consuming
task, not to mention the overbearing job of managing company finances
as sales soar.
BI was made to help companies flourish during their growth phase, from
small entrepreneurial businesses into the international heavyweights of the
business world. Reporting on company and even employee performance
is time consuming, but necessary. BI solutions however, make this level of
reporting a breeze, instantly collating every required scrap of information
you need to monitor and improve performance. From top selling products
to your best account, branch or even region, BI software can produce
granular performance reports in seconds.
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7. 6. Identifying growth opportunities
The continual delivery of growth is the ultimate goal for most wholesalers, from expanding
into new markets to securing high profile customers. While most businesses are of the
belief that any kind of growth takes months of planning and research, many quick wins can
be found within your existing customer base. And in increasingly competitive markets, any
opportunity for growth must be seized.
For example, a BI solution can identify instant cross and link selling opportunities that lie
within your customer base in seconds. If you are selling paper to a customer, why aren’t
they purchasing their toner or pens from you? And who are they currently buying these
products from? These kind of opportunities are quick and easy sales that can be made in a
single phone call or meeting.
7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers
25% have bought
product X but not Y
The help of BI solutions can empower wholesalers of every size to maximize their current
position within the market, fuelling the fire for impressive growth further down the line. Such
opportunities can range from identifying quick sales opportunities to winning business
back from the competition. Use BI to identify your fastest growing product group and work
with your marketing team to capitalize on this. Design an exclusive promotion for quick
wins, offer existing customers a free sample or even tempt prospective customers in with
a knockdown introductory price. Not only will this grow your market penetration but will
spark interest amongst your customers and could even lead to news spreading about your
latest promotion.

8. 7. Little customer loyalty
Retaining customers is becoming an expensive battle for most wholesalers; particularly
as international competitors continue to prey on your customers with low prices and fast
delivery times. Customer loyalty is very important in the wholesale industry and satisfied
customers form an integral part of your business, but as customers become more and
more price sensitive, you need to be able to provide a level of service that makes it easy
for them to reorder from you.
With a diverse customer base, keeping every customer happy demands a
complete overview of daily interactions and sales history. Any good BI system will
integrate your sales data with your customer information and provide you with a
complete overview of each account. Not only will this allow you to stay on top of
their performance, but will also act as a central information point for your entire
business and you can provide a level of service that is truly second to none.
BI software supplies the insight that will ensure your many
customers are treated as individuals and given the right incentives
to keep ordering from you. Whether this is a personalized promotion
based on their purchase history or even a free sample, the key is to
remain at the front of your customer’s mind so that when they need
to reorder, they instantly think of you.
7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers
Spot potential
problems early

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7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers7 Signs You Need BI: Wholesalers
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