The Solution
The company is structured in a virtual environment using VMware with office applications exchange. MJS Packaging is running VAI S2K Sales Force in their virtual environment with an interface back to IBM POWER7 with AI. “We've had power systems over the years, that's the beauty of it,” said Ken Weir, CIO at MJS Packaging. “It never goes down, it always runs. And then when it does have an issue, we have IBM support and they've solved the issues right away.”
Orders come through EDI, fax, call-ins, and emails. 50% of the business is via direct ship. As their customer service people are receiving orders, they're going through that direct shipment process, which efficiently creates the purchase order to their vendor. From there, MJS Packaging uses S2K to send the purchase order to the vendor via email. The company did not have that capability Prior to implementing VAI S2K.
According to Nick Haratsaris, CFO at MJS Packaging, “We've got three different companies within the same VAI system and we’re doing consolidated financial statements. It tracks intercompany balances and does elimination entries. We do financial statements on each individual company, a consolidated income statement and balance sheet for the overall company, and we can dive down a little bit deeper to do financial statements by customer class within a specific company.”
MJS Packaging implemented S2K Sales Force to unify their salespeople on one system, with increased visibility into managing customers better. Everyone handled their own account and company management and contact activity tracking prior to VAI S2K. Now, the organization can focus on and manage their accounts more efficiently after switching to the VAI software.
"As we move forward, everyone understands there are many valuable options, like using an attachment that can be added where it might have previously been sent as a proposal," said Greg Clarke, Sales Account Manager at MJS Packaging. “We can see on the screen that it has been X number of days since we have spoken with this account and that we need to follow up with them if we are looking at the last date of interaction with clients.”
An overview of Clarke's accounts and sales is displayed to him as soon as he logs on. "I see each account with their sales month to date as well as their sales over the last six months," said Clarke. He can observe how his top accounts are performing with full visibility thanks to S2K Sales Force. “Usually, I will delve a little bit further to find out whether any products aren't selling as well in that month and if so, why. I may inquire and follow up.” To determine how best to follow up with them, Clarke can check to see when they last communicated.
Clarke also uses the application to view his prospects and see the status of projects that they’re working on, as well as the last date of contact with them. He can decide what needs to be done to convert them from a prospect to a customer. Said Clarke, “This has been a great tool to manage that. Prior to using the VAI software, it was a matter of putting it in Outlook, keeping track on paper, and navigating a lot of ineffective systems so this has been valuable to us.”
The company uses Riva, a program that allows integration between Outlook and the VAI system. The program is used to unify email that is being sent via Outlook, calendar items that may have been entered via Outlook, and contact information. Using Riva has been a great benefit for MJS Packaging, as everything is integrated and they need only look in one location, whether it’s in the S2K Sales Force screen application or, if they’re logged in from the road, they can view via phone. If they want to access the calendar, all that information is there.
| Vormittag Associates, Inc. ©2024 |