Oakwell cements Alpha sales

Alpha, the well-known supplier of cement, stone and ready-mix concrete for the construction industry, recently awarded Oakwell the contract to design and implement a sales force automation system for its offices and production facilities across the country. Alpha is a local subsidiary of the global Holcim Group and operates three divisions for the different materials supplied for construction and road building.

Oakwell has built a considerable reputation for designing business software solutions in the two-and-a-half years since the company was established. Providing advanced solutions based on Microsoft technology, the company has been awarded Microsoft Gold Partner status for collaborative solutions.

The system was presented to the Holcim group marketing conference held in Prague in July 2002. Subsequently, Oakwell is in discussions with Holcim Group companies in Canada, Switzerland, the US, Costa Rica and Australia, with a view to implementing the solution in those countries.

In SA, supply contracts are typically awarded to Alpha by tender and the company needed to co-ordinate the activities of its sales teams while simultaneously gathering information for competitive analysis and providing management with projections of demand for production.

Although this seems a complex project, Oakwell provided a simple answer based on Microsoft products. Keeping it simple is the smart approach to collaborative systems and business intelligence, with no disrespect intended for the knowledge workers who use the information.

Don Schoeman, Marketing Manager of Alpha, points out the immediate benefits the company has experienced since the local implementation. "We are extremely satisfied with the very user-friendly and cost-effective system that Oakwell has provided," he says. "There has been an improvement in efficiencies throughout the sales force since its implementation."

"The client`s first requirement was to enable three separate sales teams to work together across the country and an Internet-enabled interface was the obvious choice," says Roy Hobson, MD of Oakwell. "The system is centralised to allow analysis of the information on a single database and provide management with the reports on sales performance and production forecasts that were the additional goal of the project.

"The Web-based information is easily accessed and sales people are provided with weekly e-mail reports on their projects as a backup. The system automatically tracks sales from lead to tender and on to awarding of contract. On the management side, reports are provided via the analytic tools to indicate sales volumes, competitor activity and the performance of the sales staff."

The solution is a good example of how the appropriate software technology can provide a simple answer for complex needs. This has been achieved without sacrificing the functional ability and flexibility needed even in the hard-edged world of construction.

"With the right combination of integrated software components, it was possible to give the customer all the functionality they required," says Craig Neill, Oakwell project manager. "The solution runs with a SQL Server 2000 database and uses ASP and Excel for the Web-based, front-end interface. The management analysis is provided by OLAP and Analysis Services. The code to integrate the solution was developed using Visual Basic.

"The centralised design supports efficient analysis of the company`s information resources at a single point. The other advantage is that whenever improvements and changes are made to the system, they are immediately deployed to all users through the Internet.

"This provides Alpha with a very flexible solution that is easy to maintain and has excellent capacity for speedy deployment. It is a primary concern for modern business to have a fast, flexible response to changing market conditions, which is exactly what this type of solution supports. It also delivers, for both the sales staff and company management, the detailed information needed for maximum efficiency and correct decision-making."