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
An example firm built from firms like yours, for demonstration only. 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.