Case Study: Reckitt & Colman - Telesales Transfer Order System
The Company
Reckitt & Colman are a global FMCG company with an impressive
portfolio of top-branded household, toiletry and pharmaceutical
products including Lemsip, Disprin, Dettol, Mr Sheen, Harpic and Haze.
The company has offices world-wide with it’s major UK location being
it’s manufacturing plant based at Hull in East Yorkshire.
The Requirement
Reckitt & Colman required a system to fully automate the telesales
process within the Hull location initially, but ultimately, the system
was to have the potential to be rolled out globally wherever transfer
orders occur. Time pressure required the project to be completed
within 6 months.
The system needed to span the complete process from the initial
calling of customers and prospects, through to the entering of
customer orders, and finally the electronic transfer of the orders on
a daily basis to the relevant stockist of the products.
The sales cycle is very much driven by distinct campaigns. The system
was required to generate computer based lists of the companies to be
called, allocated to the individual telesales operators, and each call
was to have a particular priority and exact time to make the call.
Orders were to be added interactively whilst the operator was talking
to the customer or on a direct entry basis as a result of orders taken
by the field based sales personnel. These orders, known as Transfer
Orders, form a major part of the system requirement.
Transfer orders are where orders are taken from independent pharmacies
by reps or telesales and then transferred electronically for
fulfilment to one of five major wholesalers. The significance of
getting this right for these orders can be understood when one
considers that half of all pharmacies in the UK are independently
owned and therefore order in this way.
Some 2,000 transfer orders are processed monthly which means that the
system needs to be superbly efficient and able to maintain a massive
translation table containing individual customer numbers and pack
codes.
A further requirement of the system was an interface with the
company-wide BPCS system.
The Solution
Having searched for a solution over a period of time, including
demonstrations of various off the shelf products, the R&C project team
decided that a bespoke solution was required. They contacted F1
Computing Systems to discuss their requirements.
After a number of meetings a detailed work estimate was produced to
provide a system with the required functionality. Agreement was
reached to progress to the next stage in the development process, i.e.
the completion of a detailed functionality specification.
The system was developed using Microsoft Visual FoxPro, running on a
Windows 95/NT Platform. F1 utilised their own programming methodology
and interface standards. This allowed for a rapid development of a
quality, user friendly system meeting the precise needs of Reckitt &
Colman.
The Process
The detailed specification, including system prototypes, was completed
within two months. This process was very intensive and meticulous as
the document was to form the basis of the agreement between the two
companies.
After a number of review meetings the specification was agreed and
work began. The system was delivered in a number of pre-defined
phases. Each phase was fully tested by the actual users, and signed
off before work on the subsequent phase began.
Commercial Benefits
One example of time and cost saving is in reduced call-backs to
pharmacists too busy to place orders when contacted. The system allows
the pharmacist’s availability to be recorded and schedules the call
appropriately.
Additionally, the program means that the operators can sell more
easily because they can call up the history for each customer at the
touch of a button. What’s more, telesales, sales reps and the customer
services department, will now all use one database where previously
there were three, encouraging greater teamwork. Finally the system is
millennium compliant so will keep running long after the year 2000.
Alan Oliver, Decision Support, commented ‘This exercise proved to be a
brilliant example of multi-disciplinary teamwork working. The system
was launched to schedule and to budget - which is quite something to
achieve.’