Manufacturers and distributors know that a critical strategy for retaining customers and driving profits includes providing error-free service. The ability to process sales quickly offers tangible value when companies can facilitate quick, accurate order delivery through document automation, says Ricardo Craft, EVP product management, Conexiom
According to Digital Commerce 360’s 2021 U.S. B2B Ecommerce Market ReportOpens a new window , in 2020, total B2B electronic sales grew by 9.6%. Sales on B2B ecommerce sites grew by 10%. Combined with e-procurement sales, B2B ecommerce sales increased by 11.8% in 2020.
But staggering statistics aside, a significant number of customers — over 40% — continue to fax or email purchase orders (POs) to companies that must then manually enter the data into their systems. This high volume of traditional ordering methods is not only inefficient and unnecessary in 2021 but it also exponentially increases the risk of errors and delays.Â
Manufacturers and distributors know that a critical strategy for retaining customers and driving profits includes providing error-free service. The ability to process sales quickly offers tangible value when companies can facilitate quick, accurate order delivery through document automation. Â
Document automation solutions like sales order automation (SOA) streamlines the sales process by digitizing data, which increases order fulfillment efficiency and enables customer success representatives (CSRs) to deliver more value to customers.
The process is simple. A buyer sends the PO via email. The software extracts the data with 100% accuracy and applies complex business logic to transform the order into a digital format that flows to an ERP or other backend system. Unless the system identifies a potential problem, this process requires zero human touch or manual entry, which:
- Dramatically decreases processing errors.
- Decreases order cycle times.
- Builds business resilience.
- Eliminates the need to process documents manually.
- Enables companies to redeploy hours to revenue-generating activities.
- Enables businesses to deliver greater value to their customers.Â
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Document Automation Simplifies and Streamlines
While manual order processing remains a challenge and frustration for busy distributors and manufacturers, more organizations have implemented document automation as an effective solution with a strong ROI. This process offers multiple ways for businesses to leverage automation.
1. Sales Order AutomationÂ
This fully automated, purpose-built solution offers 100% data accuracy and a touchless process. Its efficiency can accelerate order processing by 80%. Custom configuration and advanced AI algorithms eliminate manual processing and manual entry errors. SOA also resolves the shortcomings of inferior automation tools like RPA and OCR, which cannot guarantee 100% data accuracy.Â
2. Invoice Automation
Accounts payable (AP) automated invoice processing extracts text from AP invoices with zero manual involvement. The software applies business rules and lookups to AP invoices, converts emailed trade-payable AP invoices into EDI 810s, and sends them directly to the ERP system in minutes.
Instead of scrambling to submit payments and missing early payment discounts, companies gain up to five times as many early payment discounts. Invoice automation also reduces processing costs by 50% and enables enterprises to process three times more invoices.Â
3. Quote Automation
Enterprises gain a competitive advantage when they increase the response speed for Requests for Quotes (RFQ). Quote automation captures emailed quote or bid requests, quickly converts them into standardized, structured electronic data, and delivers the quotes to a quote app or ERP system. This process reduces RFQ processing costs by 80% and frees CSRs to serve customers more efficiently.
4. Email Analytics
Email analytics allow enterprises to prioritize trading partner onboarding by providing insight into customer order volume — all without the need for manual analysis. The analytics curates a batch of POs more efficiently than tasking employees to assess and assign POs into similar groupings. The automated curation allows enterprises to identify which customer orders require more effort to process, thus making them ideal candidates for automation.Â
5. Order Acknowledgments
It makes good business sense for CSRs to spend the bulk of their time talking to customers and providing excellent customer service, not spending hours matching documents. SOA automatically converts order acknowledgments into an ERP system-compatible file matched to each vendor’s existing PO. With order acknowledgments entered automatically and easily accessible in the ERP system, users can identify and resolve issues early to proactively address missed or partial orders.
6. Special Pricing Agreements (SPA)Â
SPA processing does not need to rely on time-consuming manual components. Automation software can capture emailed special and volume pricing agreements, convert that information into structured data and deliver it to various order management systems (OMS). This efficient automation processes SPAs with 100% accuracy, shrinks costs by 80%, reduces line rejections and discrepancy processing, and frees customer service teams to engage with their customers.
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Purpose-Built SOA: The Best Solution
Because a purpose-built document automation platform is hosted and configured in the cloud, companies do not need to budget for large initial capital expenditures. The service can scale as the business grows, and it is usually up and running in 30 days without heavy IT involvement. Because it integrates with existing processes and systems, customers experience zero disruptions.Â
A purpose-built SOA solution offers 100% data accuracy for clear text documents (.pdf, .html, .doc), so once it is onboarded, CSRs do not have to double-check orders. Companies that work with international customers do not have to worry about formatting, either, as SOA can handle multiple locations and languages and supports double-byte character sets.
Because it is 100% touchless and fully automated, the POs process in 2 minutes. Since POs are transformed within minutes of arrival, processes like order fulfillment move quickly, so instead of focusing on data entry, your organization can:
- Reallocate resources to value-add sales and service activities that increase revenue without increasing headcount. Your Customer Service organization immediately transitions from data entry clerks to an innovative customer engagement team.Â
- Deliver differentiated best-in-class customer experiences that protect revenue from competitive threats.Â
- Create unprecedented operational efficiencies that reduce costs and errors.
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How a Purpose-Built Solution Will Help Redefine Manufacturing and Distribution in 2021
As more companies implement SOA, I predict that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)-driven software will free employees to work on more strategic tasks and focus on customer service. Integrating AI and ML yields touchless automation to deliver orders more efficiently and accurately by streamlining the entire process, from PO receipt through delivery.Â
Using this lean, agile solution means customers benefit from shortened order cycles and processing, which turns their customer experience into a competitive advantage. Since CSRs provide a direct link to customers seeking information about products, services, or transactions, automation frees up CSRs to spend more time on higher-value tasks. Rather than spending about 50% of their day entering orders, CSRs can focus their energy on:Â
- Providing exceptional customer service.
- Acquiring new customers.
- Enhancing product knowledge.
- Cross-selling and upselling.
SOA solutions automate all transactions regardless of complexity, format, or repeatability. And because the automation technology scales with businesses, company leadership can worry less about overtime or resource shortages during demand spikes or periods of increased order volume. This solution will empower companies to deliver best-in-class customer service instead of relying on human capital to perform tedious administrative tasks.
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