On Demand. Straight Up. The Demand Solutions Group Newsletter

< Back to DSG Library, Newsletters	2008 Q3

Summer is here, and for many organizations, things slow down a bit. Vacations begin, customers are often less active, and you might have the opportunity to spend time with some projects that can deliver significant advantages later. At DSG, we think this the perfect time to take a closer look at your solution environment and handle some of those maintenance tasks that will support new initiatives in the fall.

For example, now is a good time to review the quality of your company’s data and get it cleaned up. Look at your list of “if-only-we-had-time” improvements and attack the highest-priority items. Finally, evaluate how well your on-demand solution is meeting your needs—which may have developed a “value gap” since last year—and begin to plan the activities that you need to optimize its effectiveness.

Fall will soon be back and with it, the faster pace of kids going back to school and new business initiatives launching. While you’ll find a list of clean-up ideas here, now is a good time to think about areas where you see potential efficiencies and where you can more closely align your solution with business objectives. Let us know how we can help you with these efforts.

Todd Fitzwater, Principal and Co-founder

While eFoodsDirect’s products are meant to be stored, their customer orders are not. eFoodsDirect, a premier provider of emergency and long-term storable foods, turned to DSG to help it streamline the company’s ordering and fulfillment processes.

Accelerating Fulfillment
In the past, customers placed their food supply orders through the eFoodsDirect’s web store and each order was opened by a customer service representative (CSR), sent to someone else for approval, transferred to a fulfillment system, and then packed and shipped. Depending on the order size and number of orders received, the entire order-to-fulfillment process could take several weeks.

DSG integrated eFoodsDirect’s web store with NetSuite and enhanced several NetSuite capabilities to create an end-to-end ordering and fulfillment process. Now, eFoodsDirect captures the order and customer shipping data, immediately displays the order for approval, and automatically sends it to fulfillment—with complete visibility into each event and transaction. Order fulfillment has dropped from several weeks to same- or next-day fulfillment.

Automated Communication
NetSuite email templates were customized and scripted to automatically generate a customer order acknowledgement that includes delivery instructions. Automated acknowledgement saves time for CSRs and reduces the risk of missing an order or omitting important delivery instructions. An event log of the email is also captured against the order history.New customers automatically receive a welcome email message that includes a link to the customer portal and a password for tracking their order status. Portal access helps eFoodsDirect to deliver superior customer service by providing shipping and line-item order status at a glance. In addition, CSRs no longer have to manually update customer records to include the necessary permissions and password.

Prospects to Customers
NetSuite automation also enables eFoodsDirect to transform web site visitors into prospects. Visitors can subscribe to the newsletter and daily updates, enabling the company to capture a list of potential clients and their interaction history with eFoodsDirect. Now when customers place their first orders, eFoodsDirect can welcome them to outstanding customer service and begin building a mutually satisfying relationship.

Coming this summer!
Salesforce.com Visualforce

The Salesforce.com summer release will feature Visualforce—breakthrough technology for developing powerful user interfaces (UIs) that can enhance standard Salesforce applications or be used to create custom applications. Visualforce allows us to build rich, interactive applications and user experiences with tools like those used by web developers. In the past, changing the UI of Salesforce.com or UI behavior was not possible. Now we can be much more creative in solution design. Visualforce is free for all Enterprise Edition customers.

NetSuite 2008.1 Features

Manufacturing Work Orders
Now you get more help in coordinating manufacturing operations with work orders and work instructions.

Commissions Enhancements
2008.1 offers many enhancements that make sales incentive compensation more flexible and simplify overall commission management.

Enhanced Data Management
New controls allow you to modify non-financial information on transactions in a closed period.

Outlook Integration Enhancements
Gain more flexibility to synchronize data between NetSuite and Outlook and improve access to information for mobile users.

Intacct Just Gets Better
Intacct has added new features and announced additional features that just keep making this solution better and better.

• NEW! On-line credit card processing Accept credit card payments with a subscription to services such as PayPal or Authorize.net. You can easily set up your Intacct system to manage credit card authorizations and enable funds transfers into your merchant bank accounts.

• NEW! On-line vendor payments
The new Wells Fargo Payment Manager allows you to pay vendors using printed outsourced checks, wire transfers, or ACH transactions. Vendor payment requests are sent electronically to Wells Fargo for processing actual payments.

• New! Support for Firefox browser
Intacct now supports Internet Explorer and the Firefox browser, for use on the PC or Mac platforms.

• COMING! Sales tax calculations
Soon Intacct will integrate with external providers of sales tax calculation capabilities. This enhancement can greatly reduce the maintenance overhead related to sales tax groups. Extra fees will apply to this new feature.

For more information about Intacct capabilities, Visualforce or other Salesforce.com items in the summer release, contact DSG.

Summer offers time to get things done that otherwise slide. Here are ideas for your summer clean-up.

Review Security

•	Review system roles and user permissions to make sure that they are configured as you intended and that they are consistent with your current system usage.

•	Assess security of your system to ensure people are in the correct roles and have access to the proper level of data.

Improve System Efficiencies

•	Identify which reports and searches are really being used and remove those that are not.

•	Establish a naming convention for quickly finding reports and searches.

•	Identify your top 10 most common searches and make sure that they are supported and optimized. You may also want to look at the top three searches for each functional area.

Tune Data

•	Review your major transaction types and make sure that obsolete or inactive transactions are closed or deleted. Review opportunities, estimates, orders, or purchase orders.

•	Review and clean up duplicate contacts, customers, vendors, or employees.

Get Feedback

•	Execute a customer feedback program using an interaction or time-based survey.

•	Conduct a survey on users’ experiences on your eCommerce site.

•	Let DSG help you hold a solution round table and collect improvement ideas.

Implement New Software Capabilities

•	Take advantage of new NetSuite 2008.1 features, such as work orders and multi-organizational capabilities.

•	Take advantage of new Intacct features, including roles and the dashboard.

•	Take advantage of new Salesforce.com features this Summer.

Demand Solutions Group is a privately owned consulting firm that sells and tailors on-demand ERP, CRM, and eBusiness solutions to deliver maximum business value for clients. The company provides a range of road-mapping, launch, revitalization, and optimization services for leading on-demand software packages. Demand Solutions Group serves businesses that range from start-up companies to members of the Fortune 100, and is based in Silicon Valley, California.

For more information, please visit www.demandsolutionsgroup.com.