Sofon Guided Selling

Unbeaten in ease of use and value for money!

Opmerkingen: The product data and rules are maintained by the people that have the knowledge, not by it-people. Though 'off-the-shelf', the tool is highly flexible and easy to use. We could not perform without it.

Pluspunten:

The Aebi Schmidt Group (www.aebi-schmidt.com) manufactures outstanding, world-wide-distributed agricultural, municipal and special equipment. With a customized range of products and services we offer our customers appropriate solutions for almost every problem. All our products (silo spreaders, snowploughs, snow clearing machines, compact sweepers, mounted sweepers, implement carriers, transporters and mowers) are configurable, from a few options to many highly complex options with multi-level dependencies and calculations. We use Sofon to maintain and spread the product knowledge amongst all our sales offices all over Europe. With Sofon a salesman is able to make a good-looking quotation in a short time without much product knowledge. Sofon supports the whole quotation process, and when a quotation becomes an order, a sales order and the complete bill of material and routing is created in our ERP system (SAP). Changes are handled too.

Minpunten:

no real Cons

Our price agreements with our various customers are now clearly defined

Opmerkingen: E. van Wijk Logistics is an international logistics service company with branches in the Netherlands, Romania, Moldavia and Ukraine. Before Sofon our quotations and calculations were produced manually in Excel. This was time-consuming and prone to errors; it was for example easy to forget a change in rates. This is why we wanted to simplify the way the rates were put together. We also wanted more insight into client-specific rates and outstanding quotations. We now make use of the Sofon Sales Organizer (CRM package) and the Sofon Proposal Organizer (quotation generator). We use Sofon to quickly produce uniform and error-free quotations, including the accompanying calculations. Our price agreements with our various customers are now clearly defined and our price adjustments are greatly simplified. Sofon also offers us insight into the quotations we have issued to date and the effectiveness of our sales reps.

Pluspunten:

Quickly produce uniform and error-free quotations Offers insight into the quotations we have issued to date and the effectiveness of our sales reps Price agreements are now clearly defined and our price adjustments are greatly simplified

Minpunten:

no real Cons

Most poorly designed software I have ever used…

Opmerkingen: I use SOFON as an end user. There is NO possible way to overstate how VERY bad this product is. It is counter-intuitive, buggy, and designed in such a way as to require massive amounts of additional unneeded keystrokes ans rework. Run the other direction.

Pluspunten:

None

Minpunten:

Far too many to list, see above.

All the Sofon-users in our company are very pleased

Opmerkingen: Voortman develops, manufactures, installs and maintains CNC controlled processing machines for the steel fabricating industry and steel service centers. Because of our growing international clientele, we were looking for a complete sales support system. Sofon turned out to be very complete, so we use all of Sofon: from CRM to quotation generation ¿ and everything in between. The implementation of Sofon took only a few months. I had expected that we would need far more time, but my expectations were definitely proved wrong. All the Sofon-users in our company are very pleased with the ease of use the system offers. Since the introduction of Sofon we have the years of customer history visible at a glance. We also have a link to and synchronization of our e-marketing package, we have the possibility to manage our opportunities and our management reports are available, thanks to Sofon.

Pluspunten:

Quick implementation (only a few months) Ease of use the system Customer history visible at a glance Link to and synchronization of our e-marketing package

Sofon offers Voortman complete sales support system

Opmerkingen: Voortman develops, manufactures, installs and maintains CNC controlled processing machines for the steel fabricating industry and steel service centers. Because of our growing international clientele, we were looking for a complete sales support system. Sofon turned out to be very complete, so we use all of Sofon: from CRM to quotation generation and everything in between. The implementation of Sofon took only a few months. I had expected that we would need far more time, but my expectations were definitely proved wrong. All the Sofon-users in our company are very pleased with the ease of use the system offers. Since the introduction of Sofon we have the years of customer history visible at a glance. We also have a link to and synchronization of our e-marketing package, we have the possibility to manage our opportunities and our management reports are available, thanks to Sofon.

Pluspunten:

quick implementation ease of use the system customer history visible at a glance

Minpunten:

No major cons.

Sales staff makes 90% of quotations without the help of Engineering

Opmerkingen: MarFlex is a developer and manufacturer of electrical deep well pumps for the shipping and offshore industries. The abundance of options and combinations made it difficult for the sales staff to provide an accurate quotation quickly; they often needed the help of our Engineering department. We searched for a provider who could meet all of our needs and Sofon turned out to be the best option for us. After an implementation of six months, we went live with Sofon. With Sofon, Sales no longer requires the help of Engineering for 90% of quotations. Sofon makes sure we do not make any errors and offer the correct combination to our customers. We are extremely pleased with the results we achieved with Sofon. Our quotations are of excellent quality, both in terms of contents and lay-out. We often simply copied text from old quotations and spend time at checking through the entire text. Now we know… Sofon is always right. We no longer have to read through the text and can send it off with confidence.

With Sofon we can now submit quotations in various languages.

Opmerkingen: Bollegraaf Recycling Solutions supplies solutions for the recycling industry around the world. We offer a complete package of products that allow our customers to recover valuable materials from waste. Before implementing Sofon, we used to spend half a day carrying out calculations and another entire day making the quotation. Sofon, thankfully, put a stop to this. We have achieved significant time savings in our sales and quotation process. It now takes only fifteen minutes to make a simple quotation. Highly complicated quotations take no more than half the previous amount of time. We’re very pleased with the fact that Sofon automatically enters the right variables into the quotation. Sofon has also enabled us to introduce standardization without compromising on the creation of a customer-specific product variant for our customers. With Sofon we can now submit quotations in various languages. So even if you don't speak French, you can still make an accurate French quotation with Sofon.

Accurate and competitive quoting increases the likelihood of an order

Opmerkingen: WTH is the market leader in floor and wall systems for heating and cooling, for both new construction and renovation. During the past few years, the market has changed dramatically. We still receive many requests for quotations but scoring rates have gone down. Customers ask multiple suppliers for quotations more frequently. So it is critical to come up with a solid, error-free, and uniformed quotation as fast as we can. With Sofon, we have made enormous progress in terms of our error percentage, speed and uniformity in the sales process. We were also able to shorten the training period for new sales staff. Sofon presents us with the right questions, explanations, and all possible answers; the system actually educates our users while generating calculations and quotations. A new staff member is therefore productive immediately. We get the added benefit of handling more work (3,250 unique quotations a year) with fewer people while we give customers better advice.

Montis streamlines complex order process with Sofon

Opmerkingen: Montis designs and manufactures high-quality designer furniture ' generally seating furniture. We implemented Sofon's advanced sales configurator to streamline our order process. During the implementation, we built about 250 models within three weeks, which is improbably fast in the configuration world. After the implementation, we noticed that our order processing had become more transparent and more customer-friendly. Entering a new fabric or leather color now takes us half an hour. This used to take us several days. We are also able to define advantageous new product/market combinations. We can definitely say that Sofon satisfies our expectations.

Pluspunten:

Order processing more transparent and more customer-friendly Able to define advantageous new product/market combinations Entering a new fabric or leather color now takes us half an hour instead of several days

Minpunten:

No major cons.

Our price agreements with our various customers are now clearly defined

Opmerkingen: E. van Wijk Logistics is an international logistics service company with branches in the Netherlands, Romania, Moldavia and Ukraine. Before Sofon our quotations and calculations were produced manually in Excel. This was time-consuming and prone to errors; it was for example easy to forget a change in rates. This is why we wanted to simplify the way the rates were put together. We also wanted more insight into client-specific rates and outstanding quotations. We now make use of the Sofon Sales Organizer (CRM package) and the Sofon Proposal Organizer (quotation generator). We use Sofon to quickly produce uniform and error-free quotations, including the accompanying calculations. Our price agreements with our various customers are now clearly defined and our price adjustments are greatly simplified. Sofon also offers us insight into the quotations we have issued to date and the effectiveness of our sales reps.

Mistakes in order-entry, production and logistics have been greatly reduced

Opmerkingen: JéWéRet is a wholesaler and manufacturer of mainly wood-related DIY products, like cabinet and storage systems. We use Sofon for order-entry but also for quotation and order generation. With Sofon, everyone has the same knowledge at their fingertips and works in the same way. A new sales employee is now ready to start work after only two hours of training. Our dealers can also be trained quickly. After 48 hours they can configure cabinets in the DIY store for their customers. The customer can see a visualization of the cabinet during configuration. This definitely lowers the barrier to buying. Once the quotation becomes an order, Sofon sends an e-mail to JéWéRet’s sales office. A robot scans and verifies these e-mails and the order is taken care of. With Sofon, mistakes in order-entry, production and logistics have been greatly reduced.

No dependence on software supplier

Opmerkingen: Rollepaal specializes in designing, building and installing high-end machines that produce plastic pipes (including PVC, PE, PP and ABS). We wanted to speed up, improve and simplify the quotation process using Sofon. Two of our staff members immersed themselves in Sofon modeling. They only needed four days of support from a Sofon consultant. We now also manage any changes or maintenance to Sofon ourselves. Now that we work with Sofon, everyone speaks the same language and quotes are offered at the same prices. We can also process requests much faster. A quotation for a complete production line can be generated within the hour; this used to take at least half a day. Even then we wouldn’t be completely sure the content was absolutely correct. Sofon helps us to prevent all kinds of errors.

Sofon - Complete and error-free quotations

Opmerkingen: We use Sofon at Damen Shipyards to make complete quotations for high speed crafts up to about 60 meters. With Sofon, we know that quotations are clear and error-free. That’s a big difference compared with our previous situation. Copying and pasting from and old quotation led to errors. Maintenance also was a big problem. Nowadays, when product information changes, we only need to make the change once and all relevant documents are up-to-date. As Design & Proposal Manager I also no longer have to check quotations of hundreds of pages in detail. Sofon provides me automatically with a management report by e-mail with all the deviations from the standard in a quotation. I’m especially happy with this feature! It saves time and offers us the possibility to improve the standard continuously.

Sofon, strategic tool to achieve commercial goals

Opmerkingen: Saval has been active in the area of fire and evacuation safety since 1925; from fire hoses to full fire extinguishing systems. Last minute requests are more and more often a day-to-day occurrence for us. So it was time for us to optimize the sales process. Thanks to Sofon, we have enabled a better workload distribution. It is immediately clear who is up to his neck in work. A colleague who is not as busy can now jump in to contribute. What a project manager used to do in his head – making decisions, calculating – now takes place systematically under the hood of the Sofon engine. Our quotation cycle time has also been shortened (from 4 hours to just 2 to 3 minutes) and the insight into our pipeline has improved. For us, Sofon is a real strategic tool to achieve our commercial goals.

With Sofon the errors in project forms are down from 60% to 0%

Opmerkingen: GEA Goedhart has been manufacturing heat exchangers – such as air coolers and air-cooled condensers – since 1933 for (semi)industrial and commercial applications. With the introduction of Sofon we are no longer dependent on one program and one person. In under a year’s time we filled Sofon with knowledge from all over the organization and tested extensively. This enabled us to adopt the application across the organization at a reasonable pace. With the implementation of Sofon we improved the quality and precision of our quotations. With Sofon the errors in project forms are down from 60% to 0%. Since Goedhart has become part of GEA, the Sofon model is also available to the entire GEA division. Doing business internationally has become a lot easier thanks to Sofon.

Sofon has helped improve our competitive position

Opmerkingen: Howden Thomassen Compressors ' until 2011 Thomassen Compression Systems ' designs, manufactures, installs and maintains reciprocating compressors for the oil and gas industry
among others. We are active in a buyers' market. So it's important for us to be able to produce competitive quotations quickly in order to score orders. Safeguarding prices and knowledge in Sofon, has led to realistic prices, precise calculations and competitive quotations. Now that estimates are no longer being made, the expected production hours are more realistic: they have been reduced by 25%. That translates to a 2% decrease in total cost price, which means that we are now more solidly in the black. So we make a sharper profit. That in turn has helped improve our competitive position.'

Generating complete quotations & orders with incredible ease and efficiency

Opmerkingen: If you are looking for an easy to implement and easy to maintain configurator and proposal generator with rich functionality consider Sofon Guided Selling.

Pluspunten:

GEA Refrigeration has implemented Sofon Guided Selling worldwide in approx. 30 sales offices. We generate complete quotations and orders, bills-of materials and routings with incredible ease and efficiency, fully interfaced with ERP. The good thing about Sofon is that we can take care of adjustments directly ourselves. Model building, maintenance and management are user-friendly. The user interface performance is excellent and a pleasure to use.

Minpunten:

No major Cons.

We have 15 to 20% more orders since we’ve started working with Sofon

Opmerkingen: DVC manufactures and supplies promotional communication materials on canvas. Our dealers work with the Sofon Web Sales Configurator. They are able to make calculations themselves with Sofon and are no longer dependent on our head office. This saves them and our sales office time. Our sales office works with the Sofon desktop version. The productivity of our sales office is much higher, thanks to Sofon. Sales employees can generate correct quotations within minutes, while the customer is on the phone. This used to take days! Our fast quotation lead time makes a big difference in terms of sales. We have 15 to 20% more orders since we’ve started working with Sofon. So we get more work done in less time with fewer people and obtain more orders.

Thanks to Sofon, we only sell profitable orders

Opmerkingen: Fri-Jado is active in the food retail and food service markets in the area of refrigeration, electrical engineering, store automation and safety. We use Sofon as a product, project and sales configurator. Putting together and organizing a complete supermarket is a big challenge. Each different section in a supermarket is dependent on what is already available or will become available in the supermarket. Sofon takes everything into account and even makes sure that we only sell profitable orders. In the past, errors could easily slip into quotations and into production. With Sofon, mistakes can no longer be made. Not even by new colleagues. They are productive within a few weeks. Previously, half a year’s training was necessary.

Sofon prevents mistakes and saves time

Opmerkingen: Kinkelder develops, manufactures and sells metal circular saw blades. All our product knowledge is available in Sofon. We use this knowledge to flawlessly configure circular saws and service processes (such as sharpening). As soon as the configuration is completed, bills of materials, routings and client-specific information for the laser marking machine (used for printing logos on the saws) are automatically handed over by Sofon to ERP. This prevents mistakes from happening. Sofon also saves us time because all relevant documents are updated automatically when a change has been made.

Error-free quotations, feasible products

Opmerkingen: Smeva manufactures walk-in coolers and freezers, cold storage units and refrigeration systems. We use Sofon at both our branches and at some dealer locations. With Sofon, we configure products and make calculations, quotations and bills of materials. It’s impossible to forget something during configuration. Error-free quotations offering feasible products can be completed within half an hour. New staff members are also productive much faster. Previously, it would take at least a year to train a new employee. Nowadays, they are already productive after two months.

Fast generation of error-free, complete BOMs, calculations and quotations

Opmerkingen: Nido is part of the Aebi Schmidt group. We produce spreaders and sprayers to combat ice on roads, airport de-icers, snowploughs and street cleaning machines. We configure machines using Sofon Guided Selling. Sofon makes sure that we don’t forget anything and don’t make mistakes. Error-free, complete bills of materials (BOMs), calculations and quotations are generated in 15 minutes. Thanks to the integration with SAP, the BOMs are sent directly to ERP. New staff is productive far more quickly than before. That’s why we don’t want to be without Sofon anymore!

We get more work done with fewer staff in less time

Opmerkingen: Erbi supplies kitchen counters and worktops on customer specification. Our dealers use Sofon to configure worktops. The specifications are put through to our production department immediately, resulting in very fast order processing. Customers now receive an order confirmation within 24 hours. This used to take about 5 days. Our sales office also works with Sofon. Staff members are able to enter orders with very little training required. This has made us a lot more flexible: we get more work done with fewer staff in less time.

Complete quotations, BOMs and routings

Opmerkingen: GEA Refrigeration has implemented Sofon Guided Selling worldwide in approx. 30 sales offices. We generate complete quotations and orders, bills-of materials and routings with incredible ease and efficiency, fully interfaced with ERP. The good thing about Sofon is that we can take care of adjustments directly ourselves. Model building, maintenance and management are user-friendly. The user interface performance is excellent and a pleasure to use.