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Around 90% of Sage 100 companies mobilizing their sales force are changing from paper-based processes

If you’ve been in the business world long enough to remember replacing manual accounting with software systems, then you’ll recall that the transition can be stressful. But if you keep certain things in mind you can avoid making avoidable mistakes, and instead enter into a great new era of technology for your business.

With that in mind, here is some guidance about what to consider before you invest in mobile sales.

1. Why a great user experience is so vital

If you build it they will use it. Unless they don’t. Sales people aren’t the most compliant people in the world – that’s a trait that can make for a great outside salesperson, but when you’re investing in technology you want to ensure that your target user has something easy to use.

When you invest in a mobile app—whether you build one customized for your company’s needs, or choose an out-of-the-box option directly from an app store—it should improve the experience of doing business with your company.

What, then does it mean to create a great user experience? Your new mobile sales app should be intuitive. If it seems like there may be a lot of training involved, keep shopping.

It should be dependable. The app can’t be crashing on you every other time you use it. Selling is a mission critical process. Find out about the uptime and reliability of the publisher’s solution before buying.

Also, your mobile app should introduce something new—something memorable. Your app should reward the user and keep them coming back to the app again and again. Think maps to customer locations. Think item images, spec sheets or even instructional videos to improve the understanding of your products. Think geo-awareness, signature capture and other measures that improve accountability. Think alerts and push notifications. Think photos. Think new intelligence gathering and a means to understand customer behavior in ways you never imagined.

Focus on creating a great user experience for everyone involved, and your mobile sales app initiative will be on a sure track to success.

2. Deciding between custom and packaged apps

Why would you invest in a truly custom mobile sales app when there are packaged solutions (including those for Sage 100) that are already pre-built and can be easily implemented? Differentiation.

If the vision for your business is to create something truly unique to your organization – a mobile sales app that not only makes you standout from your competitors, but also makes it better and easier to do business with you.

A custom app will allow you to create the exact experience you want for the user. The trade off is that you have to pay for that.

If you’re going in the direction of a customized solution be sure to check references. You’ll also want to understand the custom app developer’s ability to integrate with your Sage 100 system. If they don’t have experience integrating with Sage 100 that part alone will have a significant price tag.

3. The full ROI picture

We’re going to explore return on investment (ROI) deeper in a later post, but for now keep in mind that when you’re introducing mobile sales automation you are impacting more than just one or two processes. The impact – and the benefit – and the risk – is all throughout your supply chain.

Mobile sales automation potentially changes processes (hopefully for the better) for:
Outside sales reps
Customer service
Warehouse operations
Accounting

4. Find value by identifying mobile use cases that apply to you

When selecting your mobile sales solution, think expansively about what the future, modern version of your business can be. It’s helpful to ask yourself these kinds of questions in order to discover where the value resides in your sales process.

  • Does ownership value and understand technology and the role it can play in your organization?
  • Do you have a remote or outside sales force?
  • Do your sales people currently phone in or fax orders?
  • Does your company still rely on printed product catalogs or price sheets?
  • Do you make sales onsite at tradeshows or other special events?
  • Do you have counter sales or a customer showroom?
  • Do your customers value knowing your ability to promise product availability based on actual warehouse inventory?
  • Do you sell B2B online, and if so, would your customers be interested in having a B2B app allowing customers to place orders anytime, anywhere?
  • Are you in “traditional” mobile sales industries like food or beverage, oil and gas, uniform delivery, service repair?
    Do you have your own fleet of vehicles delivering your own products, and capturing signatures or proof of delivery?

 

5. Mobile devices – Android versus Apple

One of the worst things you can do for your business is you limit your mobile business choices to either Apple or Android-based apps – simply because you, or members of your team, currently own those certain devices.

If your intent is to make a major impact on your business with mobile, you should be thinking more expansively than that.

Sure, the cost of acquiring smart phones or tablets is an important part of the ROI calculation to measure the success of your mobile initiative, but leading with pre-selected hardware is a mistake, especially for small and mid-sized businesses who may be entering the mobile business world for the first time.

Regardless of your specific goals (and you’ll need to get really specific), if the driving factor for your mobile automation project is increasing revenue, elimination of redundant labor, or improved customer and salesperson engagement, the real value will come from new or transformed processes that you design to make that happen.

If you can succeed with that the bottom line impact on your business could be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for your business – millions or billions for the truly creative, resourceful and, yes, lucky.

The development platforms for Android phones and iPhones both are powerful and capable, and while there are certainly situations when you might choose one or the other, when it comes to having a booming impact on the future of your company, it’s changing the experience of buying from you, changing the experience shared by your sales team and your customers – and not the maker of the smart phone – that will determine your success.

6. The Cost of Doing Nothing

Can you imagine business shifting away from the smart phone and tablet technology?

In other words, do you think it’s a fad?

If it works, why fix it? Smart phones and tablets are only getting more powerful, with added features, apps, and options for interaction. Even the youngest humans among us are rocking the iPads long before entering kindergarten, with educational games and art making apps.
Would it make sense to take this away when mobile technology is becoming imbedded into our culture from an early age?

The biggest risk in not exploring mobile now is that you’ll lose new and young talent to competitors proving more modern and valuable tools.