An hour of quoting, reduced to two minutes.

The companyA European manufacturer of table, bed and bath linen for hotels, restaurants and hospitality groups, with a smaller line for the home. Most of what it sells is made to order: each product combines a model, a fabric, a colour, a make-up and optional finishings, priced by size and volume. It sells through a field sales network organised by territory, a team for large accounts and a back office that runs the catalogue, the price lists and the orders.

How it workedA quote started with a customer email or a visit. The rep looked up each price in the price list, built the quote in a spreadsheet and sent it as a PDF. Any price outside the list went to a manager by email and could wait one or two days. When the customer accepted, the back office typed the order into the ERP line by line. The history of each account sat in individual inboxes and in the ERP, so management had no shared view of what had been quoted, to whom and at what price.