The Company
Protect-A-Bed® offers a complete line of protective bedding products. Having operated for over 30 years and now selling in 45 countries, they are a worldwide leader in mattress protection innovation. (www.protectabed.com)
The Challenge
Anneke Chamy, CFO of Protect-A-Bed, needed to find a tool that would enable their salespeople, on a more real-time and pro-active basis, to analyse their customers’ history, predict future needs, and prepare for meetings.
They also needed to find a more efficient way of calculating commissions payable, as this was taking many hours of manual effort for each payment run.
The Solution
Protect-A-Bed’s Business Partner, DataQuest Inc., recommended Orchid Systems’ Info Explorer product. Using Info-Explorer in conjunction with Orchid’s Process Scheduler would enable them to automatically deliver refreshed reports to each salesperson on a regular basis, tailored to contain the exact data and information most important to them.
Mark Binkley, President, DataQuest Inc. says “With Info Explorer, you can configure exactly which Sage 300 ERP screen you want to open as the result of a drill down at the transaction level. When querying them you are not taxing the SQL Server, because all of that data is contained locally within the cube. We found that to be very effective, as it doesn’t affect the day to day performance of the ERP system.”
DataQuest also recommended Info Explorer to solve their commissions problems, as it could access data directly from their Sage 300 database, and use this to calculate and report on commissions payable.
The Result
Anneke says all the management, salespeople and administrative staff at Protect-A-Bed are very happy with the benefits Info Explorer has given them. “It was a real life-saver.” Salespeople now rely heavily on the new tailored reporting. “We have created a little bit of a monster. If they don’t get their cube every week I get an email and a phone call to prompt me, because they want them!”
They are also saving a lot of time and effort on the preparation of reports, says Anneke:
Commission runs that used to take 8-10 hours now take about 45 minutes.
“The staff are all very happy with the benefits Info Explorer has given us. It was a real life-saver!”
Anneke Chamy
Chief Financial Officer
Protect-A-Bed
