Introduction Distribution Supported Pricing & Design Registration

Some Products require “Technical Sales and Support” while being “designed in”, to encourage and cover additional costs incurred a further distribution price reduction is offered, allowing additional profit from the work. To monitor, and administrate this process a supported price / design registration scheme is set up. 2. The Registration Process. The Process required the Applications / Sales Engineer to complete paper a registration form: Figure 1 Registration Form Once a Customer has been visited the form is completed and sent in to the distributor’s office, by fax or post.

There a Franchise Manager who has responsibility for controlling and processing the application, checks the form and forwards to the Franchise’s Sales person, who then check the form and if accepted issues the supported pricing or design registration the process is outline in the registration flow diagram below. There were 2 sets of records, the distributors and the franchise. The Distributor records are duplicated as the FEA Sales and the franchise Manager kept a copy. Figure 2 Design Registration Flow Diagram 3. Issues with the Registration Process. 1. Updating, synchronisation and access to the records are difficult 2.

Customer Identification correct Name Address, Multi Site, with an account, or with out, New customers, Previous account Activity, Competitions activity (Business aligned with other Distributors), Buying Location different to Engineering Location, Use of sub contact manufactures. 3. Part Identification, wrong part number, part not register-able. 4. Form Processing time taken, lost forms and the irritate process with mistakes 5. Staff Monitoring, Performance and Assessment such as the number of Active, dead, billing registrations, by Franchise, Sales / applications staff, or business interval. ffects of promotional activities 6. Filing the applications, by date, by customer, by franchise. 7. Accessing the Records, for review, pricing quotations, and who had access to the documents (business intelligence and competitive advantage) 8. Tracking and co-ordination of the application in to billing. 4. Organisational and Managerial Change Situation. The Process was changed to use a replicating access database Since Each member of staff has either a PC (office based) or a laptop (field based). There was an existing office network, and server. Figure 3 Company IT infrastructure.

The Office based staff can access, search and generate reports from the data base. Field Based Staff have their own local data base which is replicated from the Master Data Base. This data base has the registrations, customer details and register able Franchise part numbers. Registrations are entered to local data bases using selecting options where the information is already located in the data base, as outlined above. When connected to the network through a VPN, the user replicates the data base adding new Registrations. Receiving changes to the data base such as Part numbers, register-able Devices or customer data is.

The process for the registrations is the similar to the flow shown in the above Flow Diagram, However now the process is driven automatically. The new System was able to address the Issues outlined above as follows:- 5. Addressing Issues and New Fetchers 1. Updating, change information , synchronisation are automatic, all required have access 2. Customer identification is correct because they are selected from a pick list from the database. All customer information such as previously listed is also stored. 3. Part Identification, is correct because they are selected from a pick list 4.

The Process should now take 6 days , no registration can get lost as chasing emails are sent, mistakes are reduced due to fixed information selection 5. Monitoring, Performance and Assessment, effects of promotional activities can be done by generating reports. 6. Viewing the applications, by date, by customer, by franchise is supported through searches 7. Accessing records, for review, pricing quotations, supported through searches and reports 8. Tracking / co-ordination of applications in to billing, supported through searches and reports 9. Email prompting to ensure rapid processing, updating and follow through of registrations 10.

The Data Bases are Portable. 11. The use of mobile phones with access to company email was introduced. Allowing staff to react and contact people quickly to resolve any issues. 12. Support automatically providing samples. Thereby allowing and promoting the following Changes;- 6. Organisational and Managerial Changes 1. Reduction the managerial bottle neck and mundane paper work processing automated system. 2. Reduction in vertical communications due to the system sending email and replicating data all staff are aware of changes and information affecting their roles. . Rapidly updated managerial reports can be generated and business / staff performance can be analysis. 4. Management to be proactive instead of reactive to registrations and there levels. Co-ordinated deployment of staff in to customer base. 5. Franchise Strategic implications, access and identifies customers from other franchises. 6. Increase coverage of registrations of several products at customers focusing on complementary parts. 7. Closer customer relationship, “Complete Solution Sell” to support Strategic changes, in customers Engineering and Purchasing.

Ensure Support and win business across multiple franchises 8. Shift in focus from number of registrations to conversion in to billings. 9. Improvement internal relationships and understanding through greater visibility and understand of other roles. 10. Stock control influenced to meet production dates as registrations are updated regularly. 11. Movement from functional, departmental Single Franchise aligned Staff to Matrix organisation. The Main features of ICT supporting or promoting the change situation. 7. ICT Features. 1. Network capable of supporting high data rates.

Increased traffic from database enquires and updates. To support wifi connected remote users in the office allowing free movement and location, also broadband connection to remote users and mobile communications. 2. Servers become cheaper with more memory and Processing power. Now support the data base, its processing needs, report generation, enquiries and views. 3. PC’s become cheaper, running the office software suit, including the database. Software is integrated enabling information to pass between applications. Able to support high data rate connection to the network. 4.

Laptops become cheaper, running the office software suit, including the database. Software is integrated enabling information to pass between applications. Able to support high data rate connection to the network, either when in the office or supporting high speed remote connection 5. Mobile Phones able to support email traffic from Data base through 3G. Integration of data base and Email enabling rapid response. The features above support or promote the IS, allowing and brought about the organisational and Management changes, and developed future requirements / strategies to be promoted within IS. 8.

IS Features Processes allow the development of lean working; next stage would be to remove checks by franchise manager. Resources – Personal relating to skills of IT Personal to support the new infrastructure and the software for the data base. Training and recruitment needed to give the company the correct balance of IT Skills and number of IT Personnel. The ever changing demands on improvements, new ICT and IS means that the company needs to recruit on a Person – Organisational fit as outlined in Sekiguchi( 2007), All company staff require base level IT skills to use the software as an integrated package.

For the finance resources the IT spend can now be related indirectly to sales and profits from improved performance with regard to the processing time (costs) and conversion of registrations in to sells (profits). 9. The changes effect the IS Strategy and Business Strategy The changes outline a requirement an in tune for forward Planning Strategy for ICT/IS and the Business. The changes provide the company with an opportunity to capitalise on placing barriers to entry for other distributors into the customer base through pricing and customer relationship and restrict substitute products through price and form- functional fit.

Also focusing on the customers requirements across a range of products as outlined in Porters five forces (1979, looking to provide an overall cost and differentiation as explained in Porter’s Generic Competitive Strategies (1980). The infrastructure can support Data Traffic levels increasing with Data base Size and demands. The type and Connection Method of the future ICT equipment needs to be catered for both number of nodes and data rates. This re-focuses the IS Strategy from an inward looking technology management to an outward looking planning strategy for providing the best technology to help the business. Bocij 2008 Page 544-5) The higher business reliance on the IS, availability of the data and the ICT equipment becomes significant and the IS management must have contingency plans in place to cope with the inevitable failures disturbances. The Infrastructure Security, supporting an open system means that the IS must protect itself from both attacks from viruses and malware intent on delegating or destroying the systems performance / data and unauthorised access and coping (industrial espionage) as the data will have significant Business Value.

The data and network are protected from attack by using pass words; file encryption and user validation techniques. Guidance is given by CPNI booklet Sources of guidance in the Telecommunications Sector. Ensuring that staff is aware is key to success. The UK country report (January 2010 ) by Enisa and it’s guide on how to raise information security awareness outlines the requirements , process and methods to successfully implement security awareness. 10. Lessons Learnt The project was successful and the change went through reasonably successfully with few issues.

This was mainly due to the users affected by the changes the most, were the same users who suffered under the paper system. The data was re-entered by an external service each member of the team had to check their registrations. Although painful it meant starting from a known good position, there were very few errors; additionally any previous errors could now be corrected as well. Although obtaining a high bye in from the staff there was not significant support from the top management only token support. This may have been due to the high failure rate of similar projects in other businesses.

Issue of to much information and new functionality coming on line at launch, overload the staff and some information got ignored The system went live quickly, there was enough time to familiarise yourself with the systems before having to use it. The forms and views were fixed format with no chance to customise for tastes and preferences. This may have lead to greater support within the company Initially the reports generated were only suitable for top management. It was some time before new report requests were delt with.