Founded in 1904, GHC Reid & Co. remains the oldest continually operating business and the exclusive Coca-Cola and beverage distributor in American Samoa. GHC Reid currently distributes wholesale beverages, with plans to manufacture beverages slated to begin before year end.

Challenges:

• Needed mobile solution to improve the timeliness and accuracy of order entries, track inventory stock and track shipping statuses of orders
• Provide sales teams with the resources they need to provide quality service to clients

Solution:

• Implemented Carillon’s Contact Relationship Management (CRM) and Order Entry mobile applications to integrate with the existing Carillon ERP system.

Benefits:

• All orders entered into core ERP system immediately upon synching
• Data entry errors eliminated, including misspellings and incorrect orders
• Customers receive printable order confirmations at the time of order to ensure accuracy of entry
• Sales representatives able to access ATS items before placing an order ensuring timely delivery
• Sales representatives able to track shipping statuses and notify customers, resulting in fewer phone calls back to the office to confirm shipments
• Improved staff productivity and reduced labor costs due to automated, efficient operations

Looking For A Solution

When Chief Financial Officer of GHC Reid & Co., Chuck Warren, began his career in the beverage distribution business just over two years ago, he could not have anticipated how successful the business was to become. Now the exclusive Coca-Cola, Miller, Coors and Vailima beer and beverage distributor in American Samoa, GHC Reid began its operations by tracking and updating all records manually, from inventory and shipment statuses to contact information and financial reports.

In 2003, GHC Reid discovered Carillon ERP in the Journal of Accountancy magazine. Carillon ERP had been ranked among the top 10 ERP packages on the market with its fully integrated, real-time software solution and the flexibility to be customized to meet specific industry demands. After Warren explained his needs to a team of developers at Carillon, the developers immediately got to work. Shortly thereafter emerged a customized Carillon ERP system that could do all of the distribution company’s enterprise logistical work automatically, efficiently and in real-time.

Warren returned less than two years later with yet another challenge: the sales team at GHC Reid now needed anytime access to contact databases and sales orders entry applications while in the field. Up to that point, sales personnel would take customer orders back to the office at the end of each day and give the handwritten orders to a clerk to be entered into the company database. Sales representatives would unknowingly place orders for out-of-stock items, resulting in further delays delivering the promised goods. The sales team needed access to the Available-To-Sell (ATS) quantities as well as the shipping statuses of ordered goods to ensure timely delivery of every order.

Carillon was already one step ahead with the complete solution.

Finding The Answer

Carillon was already in the process of releasing its mobile CRM and Sales Order Entry PDA applications. Within just weeks of the release, installation began at GHC Reid. The Carillon PDA applications would now allow GHC Reid sales representatives to enter orders remotely and sync the orders back into the main database. This alleviated the countless data entry errors, the delay of entering orders and the ordering of out-of-stock items.

“Since the deployment of Carillon PDA, our reps spend up to two more hours per day in the field, as they now have time for proper merchandising and marketing activities,” says Warren. “They no longer have to rush back to the office to have customer orders entered into the system before close of business every day. The orders are already entered, and the shipments are already in the works.”

The Long Term

Business at GHC Reid has drastically improved since implementation of Carillon ERP and Carillon PDA. Inventory shrinkage has reduced over 90 percent due to real-time data access and always informed mobile sales representatives; labor costs have significantly reduced as a result of automated processes; and with access to shipping statuses and ATS quantities, promised goods are delivered on time.