FPS

About FPS

How does a leading national wholesale distribution business like FPS use its business systems to stay ahead of the competition? With over 3,000 trade accounts ranging from independent outlets to large national chains, the business focus for FPS is on fostering strong relationships throughout the supply chain so that its customers can service their customers profitably.

Vecta for K8 integrated sales analysis and CRM, helps manage customer relationships by uniquely combining world-class sales intelligence with up to date transactional data from a highly sophisticated, wholesale distribution solution. It’s fully mobile, cloud based and accessible 24/7 from desktop, tablet or smartphone.

Vecta is usually the first thing my team look at in the morning. We all use it on a daily basis and invariably I have it running in the background all the time.

Graham Knight - Operations Director at South, FPS

Now in its 85th year, FPS is a national wholesale distribution company that primarily distributes motor components to motor factors and retailers. The company operates from 22 regional sites and a national distribution centre in Sheffield. It’s the partner of choice for a number of leading automotive brands, handling part or all of their UK distribution.

We needed a better handle on our business intelligence and in particular sales analysis at customer level. We needed to see not only what they had bought, but also the gap analysis showing what they hadn’t bought and what they could buy.

Graham Knight - Operations Director at South, FPS

Results

• Provides sales and gap analysis at customer level
• Personalised dashboards present the information you need - no need to search
• Interrogatable data provides answers to one off enquiries
• Manages and monitors customer activity

K8 from Kerridge Commercial Systems is the main business management system, handling over 50,000 line picks per day at FPS and all the transactional data from K8 is updated into Vecta each evening.

There are 70 Vecta users within the business and each user has a personalised dashboard that shows them just the information that is pertinent to their individual sales or management role.

'We needed the ability to quickly chop up data in any way we wanted for any given scenario. Before we had Vecta, we had to ask to have reports written for us and invariably we didn’t get quite what we wanted,' Graham explained.

The information is right there in front of them when they log on. My dashboard however gives me information about the performance of all the 11 branches I am responsible for. 

Graham Knight - Operations Director at South, FPS

Graham explained that, 'The territory or product group sales managers see the performance of their own customers so they don’t have to go looking for it. The information is right there in front of them when they log on. My dashboard however gives me information about the performance of all the 11 branches I am responsible for.'

He continued to say that he could, 'see year on year comparisons in total, by month, product group, team, individual or customer. But one of the beauties of Vecta is how you can write your own one-off enquiries to help you find answers. For example, I can interrogate it with simple questions such as which customer hasn’t bought the five most popular brake pads; or who is buying commercial oil filters but not commercial air filters.'

'Whatever I need to know I can invariably write an enquiry that gives me the answer – and I can then pass this information to my sales team to action,' he said.

The sales team uses the CRM functions within Vecta as an electronic diary, to build call agendas and to help them manage and monitor the frequency of customer activity and visits.

It’s invaluable for that. Time marches on and you may think you visited a customer recently but in fact it was three months ago! Vecta helps them use their time more effectively and to be totally efficient. We also use it as a repository for bits of customer information which can be recorded for everyone to see and share.

I’m proud of how FPS has always been able to adapt to changes in our industry and thanks to the solutions we use, we’ve often been able to play a leading role in those changes.

Graham Knight - Operations Director at South, FPS