Case Study:

Marketing & Distribution

In this example, Agile Embark is used to provide a self-help and document management system geared toward a distributor base sales model

Scenario

A distributor-based sales model leveraging a network of authorized distributors/dealers to reach their end customers was creating several issues. Agile Embark was used as a building block to create a web-based quote management and configuration solution.

Challenges

Within a distributor-based sales model, several pain points often arise. Challenges with internal data collection and sales teams can inhibit growth and prevent the sales teams from focusing on their primary objectives. Internal sales associates frequently spend a large portion of their time performing remedial support tasks instead of driving sales.

Additionally, there’s a disconnect in data related to quotes, marketing material distribution, and other critical areas, making this model difficult to manage and improve.

These issues collectively make the distributor-based sales model challenging to manage and optimize. Addressing these pain points can lead to significant improvements in efficiency and effectiveness.

Identified Issues

Data Collection: Inconsistent or incomplete internal data collection, leading to gaps in sales insights and reporting.
Sales Team Utilization: Sales teams are often bogged down with administrative tasks, reducing their effectiveness in closing deals and building relationships.
Support Tasks: Internal sales associates spend excessive time on remedial support tasks, diverting their focus from core sales activities.
Lead Times: Lead Times were the number one question asked by distributors. Several emails and/or phone calls chewed up sales or staff time.
Marketing Material Distribution: Ineffective distribution and tracking of marketing materials, hindering the alignment between sales and marketing efforts.
Integration Issues: Difficulty in integrating data from various sources, leading to siloed information and poor decision-making.
Scalability Challenges: Scaling the sales model becomes cumbersome without a streamlined process and unified system.

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Solutions

With Agile Embark’s flexible platform and absence of user limits or seat costs, many hurdles within this sales approach were overcome quickly, at a low cost, and provided an environment for constant adaptability.

Several issues were resolved by implementing an administrative system and granting access for distributors and their sales associates to quickly find marketing materials, technical documents, and specific contact information.

Analytics and engagement tracking are integral parts of Agile Embark, allowing clients to determine what, where, and why certain actions are tracked. Notifications and report distributions were strategically customized to provide either real-time or aggregated reports, depending on the importance of an action or result.

Implemented Items

Web-Based: Agile Embark can be hosted privately or publicly via the internet. This instance was hosted publicly for 3rd party access.
User Accounts: Unlimited user accounts with various roles and permissions were implemented to specify access, views, and tracking.
Document Management: An administration system was implemented to allow selected internal users to upload, manage, and edit various types of documentation accessible to external distributors.
Analytics & Engagement: Specific actions and navigation are tracked to provide insights into system usage based on the client’s needs.
Self-Support: Individual accounts and parent distributor associations were implemented, granting access to individual sales associates under a given distributor.
Administration: An intuitive admin interface was developed, enabling selected internal employees to quickly update and alter various portions of the distributor-facing areas.
Marketing Material Distribution: Specialized areas were created to simplify the process of finding, viewing, and downloading marketing materials for various products.
Event Management: Given the client’s active participation in marketing, promotion, and training events, an event calendar with administration capabilities was implemented to keep distributors informed of upcoming events.
Lead Times: A management system and homepage display were created to address the common distributor inquiries about lead times, allowing them to quickly get the answers they needed.

Results

The client was provided with a quick and cost-effective Agile Embark base system, which includes the essential components required for user interaction and data collection.

This was implemented concurrently with discovery and consulting sessions to identify the client’s challenges and refine their needs for effective solutions.

This approach allowed Agile to swiftly deliver working demos for review and refinement, ensuring continuous forward progress throughout the process.

By addressing all the problems at a high level and quickly providing these modules, the client was able to transition from a broad overview to delegating the appropriate internal personnel to focus on refining individual modules.

This created an environment where multiple parts could progress simultaneously. It also allowed internal users to become familiar with the tools being provided while recognizing the potential possibilities with Agile Embark.

Another benefit of this approach was working in an à la carte module system, which allowed the client to determine priorities and timeframes in accordance with their budgets. The iterative implementation process resulted in easier implementation, higher adoption rates, and more engagement.

One unexpected outcome was that internal sales representatives, along with other internal staff, requested accounts to use the same tools as the distributors because the interface was easier to navigate. This increase in internal users resulted in the expansion of modules and updates to specifically provide resources internally.

The Numbers

Increased Engagement: By providing a central area housing marketing materials, technical documents, and events, significant engagement growth was experienced.
- Existing: the client was now able to monitor use and gain metrics on usage to help guide them on improved delivery and communication
- Acquisition: The intuitive interface and ability to control every aspect of it made onboarding easy and effective which led to an increase in acquisitions per quarter by 12%
Sales Team: By providing a self-help area for the distributors, this significantly reduced the amount of remedial service and support tasks required to be performed by the sales team or dedicated internal staff.
- Time Freed up: 25%-50% for sales associates
- Increasing Current Sales: With the reduction in support tasks, the sales team was able to increase sales through existing channels by up to 15%
- Acquiring new sales channels: Over the course of 2 years, the sales team was able to add 22% new distributors
- Required dedicated staff: Reduced from 5 to 1
Distributor Engagement:
- Ease of Use: Engagement metrics showed providing an intuitive self-help avenue for distributors resulted in an increase of preference toward our client’s products.
- Less Costly Mistakes: By making sure that distributors always have the most up to date information, less mistakes are made with pricing, technical questions, and expected delivery times.
Reduced 3r Party Costs: By centralizing these systems to one application, several other boxed solutions became unnecessary. This aleviated several issues with multiple people having to use multiple systems. It also resulted in a significant cost savings since Agile Embark modules are a one time fee vs monthly subscriptions or needed upgrades.
Valueable Data:
- User Engagement: WIth tracking and analytics built to meet client needs, significant information was gained on internal users and distributors.
- Making Decisions: With this new data the client was able to see where users were spending their time and focus on those areas.
- Providing Support: The insight gained by tracking distributor engagement made it easy to determine which distributors needed help or support in their sales efforts. With the time freed up for internal sales associates, these low engagement distributors were discovered and able to get the outreach they needed from the internal sales team

More Case Studies

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