Founded in 1985, Tampa-based Fleet Products has evolved into a state-of-the-art distributor of parts and supplies dedicated to meeting the demanding requirements of today’s industrial, construction, over-the-road, and governmental fleet operations. The company offers a full line of parts for vehicles, trailers, and equipment ranging from small engines to class 8 trucks.
Fleet Products expanded to 2 additional locations in Clearwater and Lakeland, maintaining over $5 million in inventory in the three locations, with access to an additional $25 million in inventory through channel partner suppliers.
The fill rate on orders is an impressive unprecedented 98 percent. The company serves the market with 30 inside and outside parts professionals combined and a fleet of over 50 delivery trucks.
In a relentless effort to grow sales, be competitive, and continuously enhance the efficiency of its sales operations, Fleet Products management sought a solution that would provide improved visibility into sales and profitability across multiple variables.
The company had invested in a sales performance software program that made promises to that effect but quickly discovered significant shortcomings. According to company president Stace Williams, in addition to being expensive, the software required tedious data discovery processes, was challenging to learn, failed to provide helpful analysis, and promised CRM functionality.
The challenge persisted: the company was sitting on a wealth of sales data but could not effectively interpret and leverage it to achieve business objectives.
Fleet Product participated in a pilot deployment of the AutoPowerBI Sales Analysis Solution.
The AutoPowerBI Sales Analysis Solution was the first component of the new browser-based advanced reporting and business intelligence platform. Because the solution was designed to tap directly into the vast store of sales data already present in the distributor’s AutoPower System, no data entry or normalization was required. And because it was integrated with the proven architecture of Microsoft’s robust PowerBI platform, the solution offered exceptional functionality and ease of use.
As a result, the solution was installed and in productive use within a few days, with minimum training required.
After six months of using the AutoPowerBI, the Fleet Product management team cited an array of benefits, including:
For the first time, we have a dashboard view of our sales operations that not only provides an accurate and very fast overall briefing, but reveals important nuances that would normally go undetected. For instance, a customer’s overall sales may appear level over a period of time, but their increased purchase of some product categories may mask a decline elsewhere and we would never have noticed it.
Robert Langley – Operations Leader, Fleet Products
Additionally, Fleet Products indicated the intuitive nature of the solution’s dynamic report layouts and the functionality of the time-period slicers were especially valuable in managing their sales operations.
They plan to incorporate more of the Sales Analysis Solution’s functions into their sales management processes and expand system access to inside and outside sales personnel. They also look forward to adding the AutoPowerBI Inventory Analysis component as soon as it’s released.