Computer software wholesale

While all whole-sale beer distributors have some form of route accounting software in use for daily transaction processing and reporting, few have a well-developed information strategy designed to provide them with a competitive advantage in the market place. In fact, most information is in the form of "data dumps" that takes hours to sort through and provides little in the way of business decision-making support. Furthermore, to compensate for the lack of business analytics and decision support tools, many wholesale beer distributors have created. numerous Excel or access reports to assist with business analysis, limiting the availability of data available to all users and creating nightmarish data integrity issues.

Information is of minimal value when data integrity issues exist, reports take days to analyze, lateness in reporting impedes business decision-making, users cannot easily access or build the types of reports they need to run their respective business, and the analysis between various data points must be re-input into Excel spreadsheets for analysis purposes. Effective decision making is further constrained when performance measures and various operating metrics cannot be easily obtained due to lack of integration between systems or from lack of software required to capture data at origination. For instance, employee information including application data, performance data, training data, payroll data, etc. is of little value when it resides in a non-automated filing cabinet.

Fortunately, if properly conceptualized and well designed, it does not cost millions to implement and train users on an information system that will provide them with all the bells and whistles they will need to effectively manage their business. It begins with creating an information strategy, a vision of how data will be used within the wholesale distributorship. This vision development and subsequent information deployment typically involves the following steps;

* Identifications and documentation of the existing environment...hardware, software and business process

* Development of a company wide information vision

* Identification of existing infrastructure issues which represents a barrier to achievement of the vision

* Development of a corporate data model...relationships between various pieces of data

* Evaluation and selection of database systems, report-writing tools and analytic tools necessary to achieve the vision

* Development of executive dashboards and reports necessary to provide ease of use and assist with business decision making

* Acquisition of additional hardware to support the new environment if necessary

* Development of the data warehouse

* Transfer of existing data to the data warehouse

* Testing

* Training

* Implementation

* Refinement and continuous improvement strategies

While you may believe that the above approach to information strategy development and deployment sounds complicated, we typically find that the most difficult part of the process is in defining the vision. Most of us are rarely asked to think about data strategically and holistically. While most of us know what we need to run our respective business, creating an integrated vision for the company as a whole requires considerable "out-of-the-box" thinking. What, where, why, when, how often, by whom, layout & design, etc. are all important questions that must be successfully answered if the wholesaler is to achieve maximum benefit from this initiative.

For those wholesalers who are risk adverse...meaning they do not desire to risk a negative impact on their business operations...this approach is practically risk free since no change to existing processes, databases or existing technology occurs in a typical implementation. However, the benefits resulting from improvements in analytics, timing, data integrity and ease of use can be enormous. When management suddenly obtains the required information without spending days each week poring over reports and creating new spreadsheets, execution and performance improve. Furthermore, facts become clearer resulting in more productive meetings as "best guess estimates" become a thing of the past and the same type of analysis is available to all executives.

Improvement in information results in improvement in knowledge and knowledge is powerful. Certainly, not all improvements in business decision-making ability are the result of improved data design, analysis and ease of use. Dissemination of data to sales personnel on the street, use of employee intranets making data widely available to employee's, having the right software to collect and edit data at point of origination and training are all part of the information vision. This vision is subsequently implemented over a period of years with business decision-making typically one of the top priorities.

Competitive advantage in the marketplace relies very heavily on having seasoned and well trained staff. It also relies very heavily on giving this staff

* Timely and accurate information

* Important facts and metrics needed to develop execution strategies

* Metrics to tell us how we are performing

* Advanced notice of operating and market opportunities

* Improvements in information and communication flow

* Ease of use and access to information

* Market and competitive intelligence

* Development tools to improve skill levels within the company

* Feedback from extraneous stakeholders

How a wholesaler grows market share is about making decisions involving people, organization, process, strategy, performance management, technology and customer service. However, without the right information at the right-time and at the right place, the task of growing market share becomes arduous and costs wholesalers millions in higher expense and lost revenue.

Pat Jones is Managing Partner of the GARR Consulting Group based in Atlanta Georgia. Pat can be reached via e-mail at pjones@garrconsultinggroup.com