Founded in 1966, Die-Pat Divisions Ltd is a family-run business specialising in the supply of hardware to the food services industry. In an average year the company has about 1,600 active accounts, distributing products throughout the UK and Ireland and is well respected in the catering business. However, in recent years the competition has toughened up. Joint managing director Christine Brander explains: "While we are still achieving nice year-on-year growth the pressures on the business have increased in recent years. Our competitors are a lot more aggressive than they used to be."

The company's reaction to this increase in competition has been to re-source product: "We used to do a lot of in-house manufacturing," says Brander, "but when the competition started to toughen up we realised that our margins were being nibbled at so we went out to the Far East to re-source product. This instantly gave us better margins."

However, since then Die-Pat has come up against another major challenge: the cost of raw materials, which are in high demand and ever shorter supply, has shot up. One tactic is to try and past the rising cost of materials on to the customer through a hike in prices but companies that do this run the danger of pricing themselves out of the market. "Some of our competition are small operators with fewer overheads and they can survive on a margin of ten percent, but we can't afford that, so pricing became a key issue for us," explains Brander.

To help address these issues Die-Pat invested in VECTA sales intelligence. "The big problem for us was the sheer volume of accounts and products. It was getting increasingly difficult to control," explains Brander. "Prior to VECTA, we tried a solution from Sage and Swan's Sales Office but neither solution gave us the level of sales intelligence we were after. VECTA gives us exactly what we were looking for - simple and immediate access to meaningful sales data at the tap of a few buttons."

Sales intelligence software makes sales professionals more successful by giving them instant access to vital information about customer buying patterns and account status. This helps them sell more effectively by allowing them to create realistic objectives for every sales call made. VECTA also alerts the sales team when a customer stops buying certain lines, thus helping to identify potential threats or problems with lost or drifting customers.

The key objectives behind Die-Pat's decision to invest in VECTA were to create a more proactive sales culture and to guard against the competition. "Out of the competition there are two companies that could take on most of our product range," says Brander. "Then we've got the cherry-pickers - competitors that target a specific product or product range. We also needed to identify customers that are easily tempted away on one item or one group of products."

Although a little sceptical at first due to negative experiences with Sage and Sales Office, the sales team at Die-Pat has immediately reacted well to VECTA: "They have been very impressed by the level of detail that is available to them now at the click of a button," says Brander. "Our sales people are much more proactive as a result of having VECTA. The factual sales data made available to them are increasing the productivity of every sales call by highlighting how much more could be sold to specific customers, significantly increasing sales to existing accounts. Gaps and customer or product drift are now quickly identified and customers are impressed by the historical sales knowledge our sales executives are now able to demonstrate."

The sales executives at Die-Pat use VECTA intelligence in their monthly sales meetings and also when they are sat in front of a customer. "VECTA sales intelligence impresses the customers no end," says Brander. "There is real value in being able to show a customer written evidence of what's been going on. Sometimes the customer doesn't realise that he has been giving you a certain type of order or that someone else in the office had given the business away."

VECTA has improved internal communication too as Brander explains: "Now, when our regional sales managers download their slice of VECTA data, they look at it and can begin to talk about the intelligence with their team; before they simply did not have access to this kind of information. In fact, with VECTA there is so much more visibility over everything that's going on; this has dramatically improved communication right across the business."

The management at Die-Pat is also using VECTA to great effect: "At management level VECTA is providing valuable sales analysis that we are using to help us make more informed decisions and to drive the business forward," comments Brander. "We can now effectively connect our marketing campaigns with our sales activity. Our marketing manager continuously uses VECTA to line up promotions as the sales people feed through information about potential orders, which obviously helps us with stock-control. The sales data has never been as accessible or as useful as it is today."

Thanks to VECTA the sales team at Die-Pat are selling more and the company is continuing to enjoy steady growth. In conclusion Brander states: "VECTA makes it easy to identify any problem areas enabling us to go away and resource product if necessary. This proves to the sales team that we are doing our part to give them a better edge. They are then able to use the VECTA solution to increase their margins. The partnership we have with VECTA is definitely one that I wouldn't like to be without."

Christine Brander
Managing Director
Die-Pat