Chapter 04
Team view: Same system, three jobs, on an ordinary Monday.
Nobody logs into anything new. The sourced draft is waiting in Outlook, linked to the customer record and ready to review.
Illustrative
A composite company, not a client. We model the inputs and the queue examples, then derive every total from the assumptions shown. A real audit measures each workflow in your operation.
- Profile
- Wholesale distributor
- Revenue
- €14M
- People
- 45
- Depots
- 3
What they see
Inside sales
Answers the quotes
Opens a sourced draft instead of a blank quote. Routine ones take a quick check; product ambiguity, stock, delivery, credit and margin exceptions get the attention.
- 40
- Quote requests handled this week
- 16
- Quote-preparation hours carried this week
- 4
- Exception queues
Sales lead
Runs the desk
Sees quote ageing, follow-ups due, conversion, value and gross margin by rep, plus the decisions blocking today's requests.
Owner
Wants the number
One page: quote value out, quote-to-order conversion, gross margin, ageing and the decisions still waiting.
What still needs a person
The system does not decide these. It gathers everything the decision needs, then waits.
-
Margin below the floor
needs you todayAt the latest supplier cost and freight, this customer's agreed price leaves 4% gross margin. Decide whether to reprice, hold or approve an exception.
Quote value · €8,400
-
Quoted, but not in stock
needs you todayTwo lines have a six-week lead time. The quote is ready; the promise date is not ours to invent.
Quote value · €2,150
-
New customer, no terms
needs you todayFirst request from this account. Nobody has set the credit limit, payment terms, tax status or who approves it.
Quote value · €1,780
-
Wording flagged
when you get to itThe request asks for something the standard terms do not cover. It goes up to a person instead of a guess.
Quote value · €940
This does not remove anyone
The hours the system could take on are the retyping, the chasing and the looking-up. Your team keeps the part of the job that needed a person: the judgment, the exceptions and the customers. If a build would take somebody's job instead of the dull half of it, we say so before it starts.