Concha y Toro Fosters Growth with Mobility

The year 2008 was a landmark for Chilean winemaker Concha y Toro. The company not only celebrated its 125th anniversary, but it also won the highest scores in the national wine industry and widespread recognition of its wines' quality in some of the world's most important specialized publications. Its anniversary year also saw the largest investment program undertaken by the company in its history, which totaled $74 million and demonstrated the company's commitment to future growth and development.

 

As part of that commitment, Concha y Toro executives addressed the challenge of integrating mobile technology into its formerly paper-based sales processes to help its representatives stay in the loop and be more organized and responsive while in the field and on customers' premises.

The former paper-based system relied on field representatives to document product deliveries and other useful information manually, all of which later needed to be manually re-entered into SAP by headquarters administrative staff. The business challenges included the need for each of the following:

 

-- Online remote sales and collection capabilities: Concha y Toro's former processes were inefficient. The paper-based system undermined the timely generation of purchase orders for products produced by Concha y Toro and its business partners. The company needed its mobile sales force to have access to corporate data and internal IP during sales calls so issues could be resolved on the spot, and it needed business-to-business integration between suppliers and customers through mobile data sharing. 

 

-- More time to attend to customers and their needs: Using the former paper-based processes, the customer sales collection process ate into time representatives could have spent more productively with customers. Concha y Toro's mobile sales force needed improved tools and easier access to corporate information so they could increase their availability to customers anytime, anywhere.

 

-- Operational savings through the use of new technologies: Without easy mobile access to data, the organization's mobile workforce lacked key information needed to make decisions that would support organizational objectives and increase customer satisfaction. The company wanted to improve back office productivity and minimize the costs related to revising business processes and additional IT support staff to manage new capabilities and assistance for mobile solutions.

 

A related challenge was to improve the quality-of-life for Concha y Toro's sales team members by eliminating the need for them to return to the office at the end of each work day to file sales reports and complete other manual tasks.

 

Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Spring Wireless, Concha y Toro now has a mobile sales force solution that is based on the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. Windows Mobile was selected for its familiar user interface, mature and secure environment, and availability on ruggedly durable mobile devices. In addition, the use of Microsoft tools, technologies, platform and partners enables Concha y Toro to better support its increasingly mobile workforce by helping its workers more effectively communicate, collaborate, and work on the go.

 

The solution is helping Concha y Toro thrive by enabling its sales people to perform their best while mobile. The mobile sales solution supports 150 sales people who use HP Ipaq 610 Business Navigator handhelds to operate online and process synchronous online transactions based on Web services between the PDAs and Concha y Toro's backend systems, which are based on SAP.

 

Using the handheld devices, field representatives now enjoy direct access to products, last invoices, and accounting information they need while on customer's premises. In addition, product delivery and returns information that was formerly collected manually using paper forms can be uploaded to backend systems instantly via the handheld devices used in the field.

 

Information that formerly had to be manually re-entered into backend systems is now available for immediate analysis and decision-making. To help ensure the best user and business experience, Concha y Toro's key performance and business indicators are monitored by the Spring Wireless service manager in coordination with Concha y Toro. The arrangement measures the solution's operating ease and efficiency and analyzes any contingencies coming from communications, data, application, or user sources.

 

According to Concha y Toro CIO Daniel Duran, "The Windows Mobile solution provided by Spring Wireless allows us to deliver the tools necessary for our sales team to successfully manage our customers. It has fostered customer growth, improved the customer experience through increased frequency of sales visits and a broader product portfolio, and it provides a flexible and agile platform adequate for Concha y Toro's needs."

 

Concha y Toro's sales force can now collaborate with teams, partners and customers better, on the road or in the office. The solution has positively impacted business performance by increasing sales opportunity leads by 20 percent and increasing sales person availability by 25 percent. The solution has also helped Concha y Toro to save 15 percent in operational costs related to the sales process and has lowered travel and training costs by 10 percent.

 

The mobile solution allows Concha y Toro sales team to do the following:

-- Provide information about customers to visit during the day

-- Improve the sales process through the generation of purchase orders for many types of products, including wines and liquors produced by Concha y Toro and its business partners. 

-- Manage the customer sales collection process more efficiently and accurately than was possible using the former paper-based processes.

-- Equip the organization's mobile workforce with the information they need to make decisions that both support organizational objectives and increase customer satisfaction.

 

Due to the success of the solution, Concha y Toro is planning to add new functionalities, such as the ability to conduct surveys or deploy the solution in other countries, and is evaluating mobile opportunities in other operational areas, such as with its harvest agents.