Field Force Solution improves client management

Coffee company Bicafé facilitates customer interaction, drives order intake and improves customer service with a flexible field service solution that is easy to manage and adapt across their operations in 6 countries.

Bicafé is a Portuguese multinational specialised in espresso coffee solutions. The company produces more than 350 million of coffee capsules annually, which are exported to more than 20 countries via its branches in Portugal, Spain, France, Luxembourg, England and Morocco. Bicafé’s sales team comprises 30 people spread in the different subsidiaries. Its customers, about 12,000, are supermarkets, hypermarkets and customers in the hospitality sector. To support their growing business, they implemented a new field service solution – Zetes Ares to increase sales with a dynamic, attractive product catalogue, easy access to customer information and real-time order intakes. Powered by the MCL™ Mobility Platform, it is easily adapted to the requirements of their local branches and runs OS-independently, which make central management and deployment easy.

“We needed a user-friendly application”

Bicafé’s sales team has been using a mobility solution in its field service operations since 2003. For the new solution they turned to the supply chain technology company Zetes, who was already its partner for mobile terminals and barcode printers.

“We needed an easy-to-use and adapt field service application through which our salespeople could satisfy the needs of our clients with as few clicks as possible. The ZetesAres field force solution was the perfect match”, says Jorge Ribeiro, IT Manager at Bicafé.

Attractive, dynamic product catalogue

ZetesAres facilitates real-time registration of orders, returns requests, offers and issuing of invoices and receipts. It gives salespeople direct access to critical information about their customers, such as contract information, buying history, promotions, or even commercial conditions. The solution also enables Bicafé to manage credit control. In addition, ZetesAres includes a dynamic product catalog: customers can consult images, videos and technical data sheets of the different products as they order. Salespeople can load the media they’ll need in advance, and use it later on during the sale as the system works offline. According to Jorge Ribeiro: “The dynamic product catalogue sets ZetesAres apart from the competition, as it allows presenting our entire product offer in an attractive way. It is also easier for our salespeople as they no longer have to carry heavy paper catalogues. Plus, we can easily update information and ensure we always have the latest info”.

Central management and deployment

The solution works on any type of mobile device, making it possible to submit orders in real-time, produce returns requests, view offers, and issue invoices and receipts. Powered by the MCL™ Mobility Platform, the Mobile Enterprise Application Platform for the supply chain, applications can be run, deployed and managed centrally without costly IT infrastructure. Bicafé runs the application on 30 tablets and chose to keep its existing pool of Zebra RW420 portable printers.

Close collaboration and teamwork

“We very much appreciated the technical capabilities and availability of the Zetes team. They have been pro-active, anticipated potential issues, and ensured a smooth collaboration during the project” , declares Jorge Ribeiro.

In less than a year, Bicafé already reaslised the following benefits:

• More customer engagement and sales via an attractive, up-to-date product catalogue
• Less administrative work and errors: sales encode information only once on their tablets and it is available in real-time into SAP, without the intervention of the back-office
• Customer information is always up-to-date and readily available

Following the successful rollout of ZetesAres, Bicafé is planning to implement ZetesMedea, the logistics execution solution, to optimise processes such as goods receiving, shipping and palletisation.

“The dynamic product catalogue sets ZetesAres apart from the competition, as information can be easily adapted and kept up to date.”

Jorge Ribeiro, IT Manager, Bicafé