The Challenge: Slow order processing due to manual order entry
Highland Supply use the ERP system, NetSuite, to manage their business operations. In the past, Highland Supply had to manually key in all of their customer orders into NetSuite. This manual work was time-consuming and negatively impacted their ability to process orders quickly. On a typical day in early 2022, by the time their office closed at 4:30pm, only about 50% of the orders that were due for delivery the next day had actually even been entered into NetSuite. This was obviously a major problem for the team.
In addition to the time cost of all this manual data entry, there was also the monetary cost of maintaining a large team of office staff to handle this work. Highland Supply had to employ full-time staff members to handle the manual entry of orders. This was a significant cost to the business.
Highland Supply needed a solution that would allow them to process orders more quickly and efficiently, and to reduce the cost of manual order entry.
The Solution: Ordering app and ordering website for automated order entry
To address these challenges, Highland Supply leveraged Onsight's B2B sales platform to develop a Highland Supply mobile app and a Highland Supply ordering website. The app was made available in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store under Highland Supply's name. The new sales app and sales website marked a significant shift in the company's operations by enabling customers to log in and place orders themselves digitally. These orders are then automatically sent into the NetSuite system through a custom integration that Onsight provided.
Brady Hess, Business Manager at Highland Supply, explains the business impact of these changes: "The sales app, sales website and NetSuite integration have created some great efficiencies in our business. The greatest benefit is that customer orders are now coming in earlier. Previously only 50% of our orders were entered into NetSuite by 4:30pm. Now almost 90% of our orders are entered by that time for processing and delivery the next day. In addition, we now enter less than 5% of our customer orders manually (down from 100% previously). Because of this, Onsight saves us an estimated $60,000 annually in labour costs." Apart from these benefits, the integration and custom app also help Highland Supply to restrict and align customer orders to their correct delivery day. Lastly, Onsight has given the Highland Supply sales reps the ability to show off all of their 2,000+ products in the palm of their hand using their mobile device.
Brady further explains that "clients have enjoyed access to our full catalogue and their purchase history on our digital platform, as well as the ability to place orders when convenient for them." The cumulative effect of all these changes is that two years after the app's launch, about 70% of Highland Supply's sales revenue is now generated through orders placed on the Highland Supply app and website. More importantly, the average number of line items per order has increased by 15% since the app launch resulting in a significant increase in average order value and therefore increased revenues for Highland Supply.
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