Written by Rob Mathieson, Director of AYO Digital
The manufacturing industry has never been plain-sailing, and with new-fangled technologies and gimmicky gadgets saturating the market, choosing how to make your business run more efficiently online can be rough. But knowing why and who to ask for help can feel like a tsunami.
Many manufacturers focus all of their attention on physical assets and tangible products, rather than learning how having online services could speed up processing times tenfold and in addition increase sales and customer retention. When it comes to manufacturing, if goods cannot be produced and shipped promptly, businesses can run the risk of losing customers to competitors. This is true for both B2B and B2C companies.Having an online service allows data and knowledge transfer between globally distributed manufacturing facilities and sales offices possible; and in real-time. With the use of services such as 3D modelling and video conferencing, communicating and distributing internationally has never been easier.
The UK industry continues to compete with fast-growth economies such as Brazil and China and in doing so manufacturers must add value to their services in order to stay afloat. That’s where digitalisation makes all of the difference.
Companies such as rapidly-expanding AYO Digital (formerly AYO Media) focus on processing and operations’ driven solutions. They build interactive, fully integrated systems that can help businesses grasp a better understanding of what is happening and when by managing their core processes and data collection methods.
By fully analysing a company’s existing processes, AYO Digital then map these out and suggest what would work best for that particular business, automatic document generation, for example. Going digital is not only an aid to communication and sales, it can also allow internal staff to manage all the various aspects of the business, such as CRM data, related projects, quotations and detailed reporting. As this is managed online, users can access data from anywhere in the world. Customer data can also be accurately collated and sorted enabling a more prosperous customer relations management system.
Just recently the British-based agency helped AAF International provide a multi-platform system that allowed them to centralise their quotation management and improve their business forecasting.
In just a few months, AYO Digital analysed AAF’s existing processes and systems, provided a prototype and developed a product which was previously defunct within the company. AYO Digital also worked with AAF to develop a number of extra systems and tools to assist sales representatives and reporting for management executives.
As a result of the improvements AAF International have reported a vast increase in productivity. Dave Carroll, sales director at AAF, said: “The new system is helping us reduce administration time and the costs associated with generating quotes, which in turn is freeing up time for our sales engineers to concentrate on the quality of proposals and drive sales revenue.”
AYO Digital has also helped apply e-commerce technologies to a large components manufacturer to help boost online ordering, with a strong focus on SEO and keyword analysis. The systems incorporated allowed for internal staff to manage all orders and update the order process promptly.
Another project integrated a number of manufacturing firms with third party stock management systems, allowing them to monitor individual components. Customers could also gain access to this data from any location. Fast-quote tools were embedded to show the rapid generation of proposal documents, reducing staff overheads and increasing the chance of converting opportunities.
If you want your business to stay ahead of the manufacturing industry by being as speedy and efficient as possible, then switching to digital may be what you need. AYO Digital specialises in using web development technologies to deliver operational systems that have a direct impact on the scalability and growth of your organisation, with a strong focus on business critical and transactional based services.
For more information visit: www.ayomedia.co.uk
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