Saravana Stores automates sales with Cloud-based system

Deploying GoDB’s Cloud based Sales order management system has helped the company to better manage its order pipeline. By KTP Radhika

Saravana Stores Foods is part of one of South India’s retail chains, Saravana Stores, a 200 crore company. Started in 2004, it manufactures and markets the Jaamai brand of ice creams.
In the initial days of its business, the company used to manually take care of every process. Sales orders were received by the sales team and processed on paper. However, as the business expanded and the number of sales orders grew, manual order taking and processing data became a tiresome process and data entry errors abounded. Then there was the fear of the physical loss of documents and scope for fraud in the manual system. All of this forced the management’s hands and it decided to go in for an IT solution. The company deployed Tally ERP. However, this did not solve all of its problems.

There were over 120 employees in the sales team and order management and tracking continued to pose a challenge. The top brass also wasn’t happy as it was not getting an overview of what the sales force was up to.

S Kannan, Chief Operating Officer, Saravana Stores Foods, said, “We have been using Tally ERP for the past few years. We used to take orders through email or phone. As our business has grown rapidly in the recent past, so have the sales orders.”

The management was looking for a mobile-based application, one that could be linked to its Tally solution so that the sales force could enter orders while on the move. “We were looking for an automated solution that would enhance the mobility of our sales team and also streamline our order management process and help us in data analysis,” said Kannan. The company decided to go for GoDB Tech’s Cloud-based Sales Order Management System in the end.

The solution
This system is based on the GoDB Mobility platform, which is compatible with most smartphones. It could also be integrated with the Tally ERP system to help the company’s sales people enter orders directly using their smartphones without any need for branch support.
Mahavir Chand, Director (Sales and Marketing), GoDB Tech, explained, “The application has an inbuilt recommendation engine to up-sell during the process of order taking. It also has a graphical dashboard for management analysis and decision-making.”

The app has the ability to store the data offline, so that the sales team can enter the order even if the device in question isn’t connected to a data network. Once connectivity is reestablished, the system syncs the changes made and downloads new information in the background. The automated system also has the facility for adding outlets, tracking orders, getting status updates out to the sales force etc. The solution can also capture the location of an outlet with its coordinates and, in this manner, capture the traveling expenses of a salesperson.

The pilot project was initially conducted with 20 sales people. After it started showing positive results, the whole team was equipped with the solution. “The GoDB team understood our basic requirements and customized the solution accordingly. They also provided complete training to our sales team,” said Kannan.

Benefits derived
At the distribution level, order process management was eased with the deployment of this automated solution. With authenticated data pertaining to sales orders and status at each outlet, sales managers now have access to a ready reckoner of stock movement across locations. In addition, employees were able to improve turnaround time. At the management level, data retrieval has become easy. It has helped the headquarters to track and control all mechanisms of remote rural locations.

Kannan commented, “The system provided greater mobility for our sales folk and we are now able to tap new markets and increase the brand’s penetration. We are also getting the current data in a simple format, one that helps us analyze on the basis of order, sales history etc. The ability to work in both online and offline mode is providing uninterrupted assurance of work thereby enabling business continuity even in offline mode.”

The overall transparency and visibility of operations has increased the operational efficiency of Saravana. As the next level of IT adoption, the company plans to automate some of the operations in its factory units. “We also have plans to implement some SAP solutions in the future to better organize our functions,” concluded Kannan.