Manufacturers & Distributors: A Checklist for Evaluating Mobile Sales Apps to Best Fit YOUR Needs

Your company has decided take the lead this year in your industry and plans to modernize your sales team by equipping them with smart phones and tablets that do more than automate email, calendars and address books. Ownership has given the green light to you as the sales manager to find and acquire the best mobile apps for your business that actually integrate with your ERP system. Excited? You bet you are? Nervous? More than a little, because even though you have spelled out the goals and calculated the ROI, you don’t want to get this investment wrong. Frankly, if it doesn’t work you are going to have a lot of explaining to do.

Decision points abound, but the field of mobilized ERP for sales people is not rife with how-to-guides and requirements checklists, so we hope you will find this useful. Can we guarantee that you will find the perfect fit for your distribution needs? No, but we do know that the more informed you are the more likely your project with succeed.

Mobile Snap Shot
■Confirm that your ERP / CRM system has integrations with mobile apps available out-of-the-box. Remember that a mobile app designed to “integrate with any ERP” means it’s not designed to integrate primarily with your ERP.
■Integrates Customer info
■Integrates Inventory info
■Allows mobile selling
■Enables B2B mobile self-service
■Accepts customer payments
■Provides survey management
■Allows photo tagging
■Enabled for route management
■Automates order delivery
■Optimized for tradeshow selling
■Supports bar code scanning
■Provides credit card swipe support
■Determine basis for pricing (user-based, device-based, by company, etc.)

Goals for Mobile

■Increase / accelerate revenue
■Flexible option for employees
■Customer self-service option
■Improve customer service
■Speed up Order-Delivery-Payment process
■Steam line processes
■Eliminate redundant processes
■Increase / accelerate revenue
■Flexible option for employees
■Customer self-service option
■Improve customer service
■Speed up Order-Delivery-Payment process
■Steam line processes
■Eliminate redundant processes

Click for the Full Article