What can B2B order processing software Lucy save your business?

Written by David Bickerstaff | 01 July 2022

Dollar savings are real – but when it comes to the whole ROI, they're the tip of the iceberg

You might have been on the fence a bit when considering automation, but by now you've realised that manual business processes, especially around order processing, are costing your organisation in both time and money. Automation tools are key to overcoming the challenge of entering large volumes of inbound orders; the reality is that legacy systems are not only time-consuming and tedious, they're also prone to error.

Automated order processing solutions help organisations increase order management efficiencies, eliminate manual work, and process orders swiftly and accurately. By now you're probably thinking, OK, that sounds great - but how do I know which automated order processing solution is right for my B2B business?

Choosing the right one can be challenging. It's crucial to select one that has been designed with B2B eCommerce in mind, leveraging ERP integration to learn your products, customers and business rules. It should also collect data about your customers and their habits, providing you with valuable insights to drive decision-making.

Meet Lucy, our automated order processing solution. She's smart, and getting smarter; that's one of the great benefits of intelligent automation - continual learning. Lucy has been developed with B2B organisations in mind, and she understands that each one is unique. Lucy offers both financial and qualitative benefits – let’s take a closer look.

First, the financial benefits – let’s crunch the numbers

When it comes to the ROI on Lucy, one aspect to consider is the dollar savings. These numbers are important if you’re building a business case for purchasing the software. And the reality is that there are significant financial savings to be had - not just in man hours, but in error reduction and associated costs.

But remember, sometimes cost-savings are explicit, and sometimes they're less obvious. Consider the value created when your business reclaims time previously spent punching orders. The benefits of automating are often more far-reaching than first imagined.

Saving money is important, but it's not all that automated order processing offers

When it comes to the ROI with Lucy, it's not solely about the money. We understand that there are real challenges businesses face that can’t be quantified with a simple calculator. For example, here are some of the swift, tangible benefits our customers have noticed since deploying Lucy:

Reduce hours to seconds - one of our Lucy users sometimes receives 50 page purchase orders, which would take over two hours to input into their ERP. Lucy has reduced that literally to seconds. That's pretty significant in terms of time and resource savings.
Smart 'rules' - this is another major time saver our Lucy users have commented on. It's a feature that removes friction from things like Unit of Measure (UoM) disagreements. Consider this example: a customer insists on always ordering eight wheels of camembert cheese for $5 each, but you only sell them in cartons of eight for $40. Lucy can apply the rule and convert both the UoM and the unit price, before it becomes an ‘error’ that needs correcting. This eliminates the need to have a customer service rep catch this, recognise it, calculate and correct it, causing significant delays in processing the order (and inviting errors).
The freedom to focus on high value, core tasks - our Lucy users have been able to redeploy customer service staff into more senior sales roles, because Lucy takes over the manual data entry tasks they spent so many hours performing.
Increase in order throughput - Lucy users have noticed a definite increase in the speed of their order processing and delivery. They can process orders much quicker with Lucy - from the inbox to the ERP, from the ERP to the warehouse, from the warehouse onto the truck, the truck to the customer. Enhancing the efficiency of order processing enables increased order processing capacity.

For our Lucy users, these benefits have increased:

Customer satisfaction due to faster order fulfilment
Staff satisfaction due to more meaningful customer engagement
Visibility of customer order habits/errors/opportunities due to Lucy's reporting capability

Yes, dollar savings are real, material, and worthy of pursuit – but with Lucy, there are so many other nuanced benefits to be had as well.

To become a B2B sales leader, regardless of industry, digital transformation is a must. Now more than ever, B2B business leaders need to focus on replacing their outdated, manual legacy systems with intelligent solutions. Automated order processing will not only save your business time and money, but it will accelerate your business growth, allowing you and your team to focus on high value tasks and generating increased profits.

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