Case Kotipizza - mobile sales force
Highlights
- Kotipizza’s field sales force significantly improved their productivity and gained a more flexible working environment
- Mobilization of 3 existing business applications in 5 days, the mobilization of applications was the real value. E-mail and PIM as additional features.
- Mobile solution hosted by customer, minimum investments and fast deployment
- Make the field sales force more productive and give them a better work environment
Background
Finnish home delivery pizza restaurant chain, Kotipizza, was founded in 1987. Today it is the largest pizza chain in the Nordic countries and the second largest in Europe. It has over 220 restaurants in 100 locations all over Finland. Kotipizza is a franchise chain, and their employees mostly work “on the road” travelling, spending very little time at the office. Therefore the need to mobilize the daily used business applications was critical. The Kotipizza sales organization had the following requirements for the applications’ mobile use:- Regional managers must be able to get updated information about the local franchiser. This includes both sales and background information.
- Regional managers and corporate management need to be able to check on-line calendars and group calendar information, as well as schedule meetings.
- Contact information must to be easily retrievable
- E-mail use and personal information management (PIM) must be possible while travelling
The Solution
Kotipizza’s applications were mobilized with Sofor’s Waplane Query Edit tool. Kotipizza’s back-end solutions were built on IBM/Lotus’ Domino technology (except the cash-register system). It was agreed that the following applications were to be mobilized: ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, calendars, e-mail and other PIM application. The most essential function of all of these was the SEARCH function.When working on the road the most critical feature seemed to be the possibility to search for different types of data. The information about restaurant sales is stored in the Kotipizza ERP system that in this case is a Cash register application. The information in the Cash register system can be exported to a Domino database by IBM/Lotus.
The following searches were listed as essential:
- Restaurant
- search by number
- search by place of business
- sales - Group calendar
- search by person
- search by date - Person search
- E-mail and PIM
Here is an overview of the applications’ mobile use:
Search for restaurant
Search by number: The user enters the number of the restaurant. The restaurant number, name of the company, the name of the franchiser, the address, and the phone number or the restaurant are returned.
Search by place of business: If the user does not know the number of the restaurant, he/she can search for all the restaurants in the region and then by browsing the result find the number for the restaurant they need to find. For example, the search term HEL will return all cities that start with HEL having a Kotipizza restaurant. The returned restaurant number can be used for further searching.
Sales: By entering the number of the restaurant in the search box, the user can browse the restaurant’ monthly sales. The sales figures are listed by year also, and by clicking on the year the monthly sales will be displayed. The latest monthly sales are listed first.
Search the group calendar
Search by person: the user can search for calendar entries or a specified person.
Search by date: the user can browse for various calendar entries by date. By clicking on a date all employees’ calendars will be displayed. To view a certain entry of a certain person, the user can click on the person’s name.
Search for person
Person search: The user can search for information about a person in the CRM by entering the name of a person in the search box in his/her mobile device. If more then one person with the same name is found, they will all be listed. When one of them is selected, the following information will be listed: the person’s name, phone number, mobile phone number, and e-mail address. By clicking on the e-mail address or the phone number the user can instantly send mail or call the person.
E-mail and PIM:
The e-mail and PIM functions’ mobilization were provided “out-of-the-box” with Waplane.
The mobilization project of Kotipizza’s business applications took 5 days. Kotipizza’s mobile applications run in-house at Kotipizza’s premises, and the mobile solution is hosted by Net Servant Oy, a subsidiary of Sofor Oy.
Benefits
Prior to mobilizing their applications with Waplane, the Kotipizza regional managers had two different alternatives to keeping up with relevant information while travelling around the country visiting the franchisers. Either they printed all necessary documents in advance and carried them around, or they had to call the Kotipizza head office to ask for information. The first alternative is both inconvenient and inflexible. The regional managers have to carry a lot of material with them, and they cannot change the visiting schedule on the road, because they only have the printed materials of the agreed franchisers with them. The second alternative, calling back to the head office, takes up the time of two people, provided that there is always someone to take the call.Thanks to Waplane Kotipizza’s regional managers can now access the latest information about the franchisers all around Finland regardless of time or place. The information is always with them, and the access is instant, because the access point is their mobile device.
Mobilizing the business applications yields several benefits. Printing and paper costs are cut to a minimum because the sales people don’t have to print document. What’s more, they don’t have to carry with them a pile of paper. Further, they can alter their travel plan even while on the road, because they can access the back-office systems wherever and whenever they need to. Also, since there is no need to call the office to get updated information, time is saved and there is no need to have a person sitting in the office at all times to answer the calls from the field sales personnel. The ROI of the applications is gained faster, because they are extended to mobile use.