Setting Sales

For more than a century, Gund has been creating teddy bears and other plush toys renowned for their softness, quality and design. Based in Edison, New Jersey, the company was one of the first to design and produce teddy bears in the early 1900's. Gund products are sold worldwide to specialty, toy, book, museum and department stores, in addition to many other retail outlets through the company's direct sales force.

About two years ago, the company found itself in a unique situation. It was experiencing unprecedented growth but was hampered by an outmoded paper process used for recording and tracking customer orders. Gund sales associates were literally taking orders on carbon order forms and faxing or mailing them into the appropriate distribution centers, which was slowing down the ordering system.

"Our business was growing rapidly and the paper process did not allow us to focus on the needs of our customers to get the products into the stores fast enough," says Brian Bendavid, director of sales administration for Gund.

Plush Process

In order to speed the ordering and tracking process, Gund snuggled up to a Hewlett-Packard forty key handheld unit with touch screen for its direct sales force. IBM designed the software specifically for the Gund system, dubbed G.O.E.S. (Gund Order Entry System) II, which enables sales associates in the field to take orders, connect via modem to upload orders and download inventory, pricing and customer billing and shipping information. Back-end data processing done on the company's AS/400 was designed in-house.

In March 2002 Gund went live with the G.O.E.S. II system, which has virtually eliminated the cost of sending printed materials and weekly reports to the sales staff. More importantly, faster order processing time ensures that products arrive at stores faster, creating an extra turn on inventory and reducing out of stock at the retail level.

"Basically, G.O.E.S. does all of the checks and balances while sales reps are in the store so they can address the information, whether it's a credit problem, return issue or an open order that hasn't shipped yet," says Bendavid. "It gives them all of the information at the point of customer contact."

Under the old system, orders took 24 to 48 hours to process. Even though orders were processed electronically, it involved additional people to physically examine orders for approval. Now, the handheld unit does all error checking. When orders are processed into the G.O.E.S. system, they are whisked along to "allocation ready" status if the order is, in fact, error free.

"The sales reps enter the orders, dials them in and nobody touches it," says Bendavid. "That was our goal. To get orders processed fast and out the door."

Rapid Return

Gund has achieved rapid ROI with G.O.E.S. through the huge reduction in paper costs the system alleviates in addition to servicing customers more efficiently. Weekly, paper-based sales reports comprised a huge expense for Gund and are now a thing of the past thanks to the G.O.E.S. system. In addition, company sales associates can tap into detailed product information down to the SKU level. Customer history and buying trends are also easily accessible through the powerful mobile device.

"Sales associates know what we've shipped into the customer and it gives them the ability to recommend items and address their retail issues," says Bendavid. "We can turn around an order much faster now. The faster it gets on the shelf, the faster it sells through."

Time Table

The breadth of Gund's product, segmented by "everyday" and "seasonal" spans numerous catalogs with hundreds of pages that provide detailed descriptions for each item. Keeping track of it all was a daunting challenge for Gund's sales associates but the G.O.E.S. system catalogs every item. Timing is extremely important to alert customers of new products, especially for seasonal holidays like Valentine's Day when the selling period is shorter.

"When a customer needs a reorder, you don't want to promise them something if we can't ship it out the back door," says Bendavid. "This is where updated inventory is really important because we are a sales-driven company. IT is here to support sales and you can see that the sales people have clamored around the product."

Future Function

In addition to being user-friendly, Gund designed the G.O.E.S. system to incorporate additional modules and functionality, should its sales reps request more options.

"It's amazing to see how the salespeople rallied behind us and were pushing to get it into their hands," says Bendavid.

Chris Walsh, information technology director for Gund says G.O.E.S. is a breeze to operate.

"The system is very intuitive and easy to use," Walsh says. "We wanted the order process to flow nice and easy so the sales associates didn't have to think about the operations of the unit. All they have to worry about is making the sale."