Hama PVAC Ltd is the UK subsidiary of Hama GmbH (Germany). The company sells OEM and own brand electronic accessories to over 4,000 customers, most of which are shops and wholesalers. As well as marketing and distributing the Hama range of products, Hama also acts as a UK distributor for a number of leading manufacturers.

Hama PVAC Ltd is the UK subsidiary of Hama GmbH (Germany). The company sells OEM and own brand electronic accessories to over 4,000 customers, most of which are shops and wholesalers. As well as marketing and distributing the Hama range of products, Hama also acts as a UK distributor for a number of leading manufacturers.

There are nine people in the sales team at Hama. Sales director, John Goodwin, introduced VECTA soon after joining the company. "I wanted to introduce some pretty substantial targets into the business," says Goodwin, "I needed to change the information flow in the business and VECTA allows me to do that and gives more power to the guys at the sharp end."

VECTA is a sales intelligence tool designed to analyse customers' buying patterns, resulting in improved sales productivity and overall profitability. The software highlights alternative and related products to increase the value of a sale and help users to cross- or link-sell more effectively.

"VECTA provides our sales team with a percentage breakdown of customer buying activity, which allows them to divide their call time more smartly," explains Goodwin. "It also enables us to really concentrate on the accounts that can deliver the business to us. VECTA enables us to be very customer focused and to make very informed decisions."

One of the primary goals for Hama is to improve profit margins by changing the business mix to more own brand products sales. With VECTA it is possible to interrogate sales intelligence and identify the products that are easiest to switch sell. "One salesperson at Hama who was selling a 60/40 mix in favour of OEM products has changed the mix to 60/40 in favour of own brand products," says Goodwin. "This has had an instant impact on margin growth."

VECTA has also made an important impact when it comes to negotiating discounts. Hama is now able to quote numbers bought and sold very quickly and with far greater ease. As a result the company has already started to achieve better purchasing power. The actual product selection process has also been streamlined using VECTA.

Traditionally product managers made the selection but now the decisions are made at a sales level, which has made purchasing more accurate.

"Our parent company has seen the information that comes out of VECTA and was so impressed that we've actually changed our reporting methods," says Goodwin. "Now we simply drop that information out of VECTA straight into the documents, whether they are weekly updates or quarterly reports."

Hama uses an accounting package called Concorde XAL. Prior to VECTA the working methods at Hama were largely paper-based, which was cumbersome and meant that information was not readily accessible. "Our IT manager takes the information from Concorde and transfers it into VECTA on a weekly basis," says Goodwin. "So we get constantly updated information and no longer have to spend time processing and managing paper. Even those with no previous IT experience are now asking questions based on information generated by VECTA."

The return on investment is easily quantified in terms of increased sales and there is added value in the power and control that VECTA gives the management at Hama, as Goodwin explains: "Since implementing VECTA Hama has seen a 30 percent increase in sales but another important return which is harder to quantify is the internal visibility we have now and the power that gives us at management level."

Effectively, VECTA unlocks vital information, which can be used to direct or modify strategy. "Take link-selling as an example," says Goodwin. "Before VECTA it would have been down to the individual salesman to have that much of a handle on his own territory and his own customer base but now I can generate those enquires and instigate discussions with the sales guys." In addition to this unprecedented level of control the company has also benefited from significant time-savings since implementing VECTA. On average it has at least halved its preparation time for meetings and customer, product and salesperson reviews.

"VECTA has helped Hama to change the culture of its business. The information it has made available to the company is helping the sales team to be more creative and proactive," concludes Goodwin. VECTA has enabled the company to devise a new sales strategy, which sees Hama selling solutions rather than just individual products.

"Since implementing VECTA Hama has seen a 30 percent increase in sales but another important return which is harder to quantify is the internal visibility we have now and the power that gives us at a management level."

John Goodwin
Sales Director
Hama