SADIX, Sales and Distribution Systems

Sales and Distribution Systems is a general terminology for various application software related to Sales/Order Processing.

SADIX encompasses several crucial features in Sales and Distribution Systems that previously or currently performed manually:

1.   Product Portfolio Management and SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)

2.   Warehouse/Storage Management

3.   Inventory related to SKU quantities in each Warehouse

4.   Kiosk/Outlet Management

5.   Sales Organization Management

6.   Sales and Order Management

7.   Business Process for Sales and Order

8.   Map/Route Planning and Tracking Tools

9.   Reporting Tools

10.  Fleet Management (optional)

Figure 1. SADIX Overview

SADIX provides tools and equipment for increasing accuracy in manual order entry while at the same token reducing cumbersome and time consuming order processing and reporting. Users will be able to view and make reports in real-time.

As shown in the above figure, SADIX collects sales/order data from smart phones (Android, Blackberry, i-Phone), this structured data collection is the foundation for SADIX processing:

1.   Data Collection: thanks to software mobile application on smart phones such as Android, Blackberry or i-Phone, salesmen or canvassers can enter and send data to SADIX server for data collection purpose. Once data is received, it will be stored in SADIX server for further analysis and processing

2.   Business Process Management: one of the key features in SADIX is Business Process Management (BPM). BPM contains the necessary logic that can be easily modified and adapted to any organization. It also manages the day-to-day Business Process adherence and execution

3.   Monitoring: observing and monitoring sales and distribution processes could be very demanding tasks depending on the size and complexity of the systems, e.g. number of products to be distributed, area/territories to cover and number of salesmen/canvassers to be managed. SADIX provides flexibility and ease of use to transform monitoring process to automated and repeatable business processes

4. Reporting: SADIX’s key advantage to business owners or executive management of sales and distribution companies is the speed, clarity and conciseness of collecting  data and reports that can be done in real-time or on daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis

SADIX's Benefits

The following table shows some of the benefits of SADIX compared to traditional way of doing business in Sales and Distribution. The benefits can be summed up in Accuracy, Agility and Flexibility:

Table 1. Sadix Benefits

Data Collection via Smart Phones

Figure 2. Smart Phone Application Snapshots

As discussed in the overview, SADIX takes advantage of recent technological trend in mobile technology and applications using smart phones: Firstly the price of smart phones has been falling rapidly, secondly smart phones has been increasingly more powerful and feature rich in recent years. The third aspect is the improving cellular coverage around the world especially in developing countries.

Those trends will accelerate in the coming years so that it allows us to use the power and features of smart phones to form platforms for mobile order entry vehicles that can be deployed anywhere and anytime.

The above figures show snapshots in which salesman will be able to login with his/her ID and password to smart phones and get the message of the day from HQs. SADIX mobile application will then offer user-friendly menu to navigate through the sales/ordering process that will be completed by saving or committing the sales order to the system. After the data is sent by the salesman in charge and received by the server, SADIX will store and process the sales order data.

Business Process

Figure 3. SADIX Login

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Figure 4. Simplified Sales/Order Workflow

One of the key steps in SADIX after receiving sales/order data is to execute and follow prescribed business process. The above figure shows a simplified sales/order workflow that should serve as an example how a business process can be precisely defined and executed. Another simple example of order business process:

1. Upon receipt of sales/order data, the system sets the state of that data set to “RECEIVED”

2. Sales admin of SADIX will check the sales/order data for consistency and will set the state to “CONFIRMED” or “REJECTED”

3. Another SADIX user which we call dispatcher will view all CONFIRMED sales/orders and check in the inventory whether there is enough products in the warehouse that are ready for delivery

4. This user will then be able to modify the state to “DELIVERED” – this may or may not be the final state of that order in SADIX

Sales/Order Reporting

The most visible advantage using SADIX is the ease of use, flexibility and speed to generate reports. In SADIX, users are able to obtain very specific reports in almost real-time.

In contrast to SADIX, it could take days to prepare and generate the same reports in conventional sales and distribution systems. It is also often the case that in some cases users cast doubts over the accuracy of manually prepared reports as it is very error prone going over stacks of manually written order notes.

Generally, sales/order reports could be filtered in many aspects:

The figures below depict a number of sales reports that can be in form of bar or pie charts that show the sales performance of specific organization within pre-determined territory and responsible for product category.

SADIX enables users to specify and select those parameters and show the sales reports immediately. The raw sales data can be exported in many forms for further processing, e.g. invoicing or synchronization with another software applications.

Figure 5. Sales/Order Report

Sales Target and Key Performance Indicator

SADIX allows administrators or supervisors to set sales target to each salesman within his/her organization. Sales targets will be managed and stored according to when they were set. These targets will be then used to measure Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for each salesman. The figure below shows the panel to set target to the selected salesman.

Figure 6. Sales/Order Target Setting

With the sales target set, supervisors or managers can monitor the performance of their sub-ordinates by automatically comparing the actual sales/orders against the agreed upon targets. The figures below present the KPI in bar and radar charts.

 Figure 7. KPI (Key Performance Indicator): Sales/Order vs Target Report

Map/Route Planning and Tracking

Figure 8.  Route Planning

Another important feature in SADIX is route planning and tracking as well as the sales report regarding the assigned territory.

One of the objectives for route planning is to optimize the route salesmen travel. In some cases, salesman tend to take sales orders outside his assigned territory so that it could create organizational problems or lead to price wars within the same organization. This is another important objective why we need route planning or territory or a list of kiosks/outlets assigned to salesman. The figure above illustrates the process of route planning or territory assignment.

ON-OFF-Territory

Figure 9. On- and Off-Territory Report

After the territory or route has been assigned to salesmen, we can then monitor or generate reports how well salesmen follow the route or territory regulation by looking at the comparison between sales order within or outside territory. The higher the sales outside salesman’s territory the worst his performance although he might be able to meet or exceed his sales target.

Figure 10. Map/Tracking Report

Inventory and Warehouse

One of the most important modules and its features are inventory and its reporting. In the inventory, we model warehouses as well as its inventory, i.e. the number of products in each warehouse. The basic operations in inventory are the addition and subtraction of each product; addition occurs when products are delivered the warehouse and subtraction when products are shipped to customers from that warehouse. This operation can be performed in inventory module shown in the figure below.

Another important feature in the inventory is the so-called reconciliation in which we either systematically count either manually or automatically the number of each product the distributor carries. This systematically counting will result to actual inventory. The actual inventory will be compared and reconciled with the book inventory. In most cases, there is discrepancy between the actual and the book inventory so that these must be reconciled to reflect what occurs on the ground.

SADIX models the actual as well as the book inventory so that we can reconcile as well as record the reconciliation results.

 Figure 11. Inventory and Warehouse

The figure below shows inventory report in which we can report the number of products in the selected warehouse on specific dates. It is often required that we need to export the compiled data into other systems, e.g. ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). SADIX offers users data export in several formats: CSV, Excel.

Figure 12 Inventory Report

Fleet Management

In Fleet Management module, SADIX offers vehicle tracking capability with X-Locate so that users will be able to monitor and track each vehicle re: speed, fuel consumption, distance and where it goes. This will give users the capability to check and see not only the distance travelled but also locations where the vehicle goes to.

In SADIX, users will be able to collect reports such as

1. Distance travelled on daily, weekly or monthly time window
2. Average fuel consumption and average total fuel consumed during the selected time frame
3. Maintenance records and costs for each vehicle
4. Total cost of ownership for each vehicle

Conclusions

Upon SADIX deployment, users should be able to reap many benefits that can be summarized as follows:

1. Paperless and automated Sales and Distribution System that is designed to
1. increase operational efficiency,
2. reduce human errors and
3. reduce total cost of ownership
2. Real-time sales response, processing and reporting: Users will be able to create sales reports and processing within minutes compared to traditional systems in which sales and order report processing and preparation could take days or even weeks
3. Agile and nimble organization: with real-time sales processing and reporting, sales and distribution organization should be able to operate and respond faster to changing demand