Success story

Automation of interactions
between a manufacturer and an extensive
network of distributors

obninsk

Business goals and objectives

Obninskorgsintez occupies one of the leading positions in the Russian market of antifreezes, motor oils, lubricants and other automobile special fluids. The manufacturer directly supplies Russian plants, AVTOVAZ uses the company's antifreeze at the first production stages.

The company has an extensive and far-reaching distribution network in Russia. Thanks to the implementation of ELMA BPM, Obninskorgsintez painlessly switched to remote work, without wasting time, money and human resources on rebuilding their business processes.

ELMA BPM implementation goals

  • Organize effective work of the remote distribution network.
  • Organize internal and external work efficiency.

  • 1500+ people

    work at Obninskorgsintez

  • 150+ companies

    form part of the distributor's data base in Russia and abroad

  • 2015 year

    is when ELMA BPM was implemented

  • 70 000

    distribution points included into the internal database

Project objectives

  • Organize remote work with the distributors

  • Increase product representation

  • Implement electronic document management

What problems ELMA solve

  • Unsystematic work between departments

    Many regulations required handwritten signatures of numerous approvers. On average, document approval took 2–3 weeks, which was a waste of time and money.

    Electronic document management

    The approval process takes less than 3 days after implementing ELMA.

  • Lack of control over the distribution network under the remote work conditions

    Distributor personal accounts

    An external solution based on ELMA BPM allows customers to connect to the system from the outside and have access to some processes. Thus, a distributor can order goods, and the information about the order is automatically added into the system by the process. This is an electronic agreements system in one place.

  • The employees work efficiency decreases after switching to remote work

    Three-step control system

    The managers receive a daily service process that enables them to assess an employee’s workload, efficiency, and state of being.

  • Long remote process set up

    Rebuilding processes in hours

    5 hours is the average time to develop an interface for remote work without the participation of ELMA specialists.

  • Distributors not fulfilling their obligations

    Daily sales and balances reports

    Outlets report daily on sales and product balances; the information is automatically loaded into the system. Fast analytics used to improve distribution quality.

  • Ineffective onsite marketing

    Lack of control over outlet sales. The manufacturer does not have an understanding of what product is presented on the shelves of a particular store, which is why the advertising campaign might be ineffective.

    Internal outlets database, effective marketing

    ELMA has integrated information on outlets from open sources. Each store is assigned an identifier, outlets report on sales and product balances daily, the information is automatically loaded into the system. As a result, managers obtain relevant data and make decisions on time. Onsite marketing becomes effective.

  • Unmotivated sellers

    Motivation portal

    Each outlet is registered in an external portal integrated with ELMA. Portal users can start business processes in ELMA, sales data is sent to the portal from ELMA. The store receives bonuses for fulfilling the conditions of marketing campaigns. The head of the outlet can also view product promotions in the same system. Motivation to raise MML.

Kirill Orlov

Our processes had already been prepared for the employees to work remotely, but we developed a small process for assigning and controlling tasks. The process starts automatically for each manager and their subordinates and helps with an additional planning of the working day. This made it possible to consciously approach time management and monitor the work results.

Kirill Orlov
Kirill Orlov

Lead Developer at Obninskorgsintez

How ELMA works at Obninskorgsintez

Controlling remote work Distributor portal Motivation portal Outlet database, effective marketing

At the beginning of each working day, the head of the department receives a system process "Subordinates working day management on MM.DD.YYYY". The first of its three parts requires an evaluation of an employee's readiness to work for the day: Ready for work”, Sick, Day off and so on. A person responsible for the tabulation also receives the process information.

The second step of the process is to "Evaluate the work results over the past days".

In a single interface, the head of the department can view a list of all completed and uncompleted tasks as well as execution deadlines for each subordinate. The head can also immediately complete control of the task.

The third part of the process is to "Assign daily tasks to employees".

The head sets new tasks for the subordinates. The system offers to select an executor from the list of employees, whom the manager marked as "Ready to work" during the first part of the process.

After clicking the Save button, all actions performed within the task are instantly launched into execution.

Distributor portal

This is an external ELMA solution that allows customers to safely connect to the company's internal system. All documentation with the contractor passes through the portal; the information on the warehouses workload, the products availability and sales data is also displayed in the same place.

A distributor can start processes such as ordering goods or promotional items, requesting special prices to participate in tenders and also report on their completion. Then, the information within the end-to-end process goes through the system by means of integration with 1C.

“100 distributors in Russia are currently using this system. The introduction of ELMA for interaction with distributors was an important stage in the development of the system for us. The system allows you to clearly assign tasks, monitor their execution and make the most efficient use of the company's resources for product promotion. Data exchange has become much faster and more efficient. Distributors also had to tidy up their accounting systems to launch data exchange, which also increased their efficiency”

Alexey Belyatsky
Alexey Belyatsky

Head of Regional Sales Development

Motivation portal

“We were faced with the task of increasing the representation of our product. For this purpose, the company has launched a motivation portal. This is a site that targets outlets and sellers. An outlet receives bonuses for the fulfillment of certain conditions of sale. ELMA connects the processes of the outlet, the distributor and the manufacturer. This would have been impossible without ELMA.”

Evgeny Dubovitsky
Evgeny Dubovitsky

Head of Sales Development Department

The outlet is registered on the portal, then the data is sent to ELMA for comparison with the manufacturer's database, the outlet is assigned an identification number and the response is automatically sent to the portal through the process.

The "producer - distributor – outlet" chain is linked by a single identifier. Distributors view product promotions, the manufacturer views the amount of goods sold per outlet and its movement. Based on this data, we can give bonuses to the sellers.

Outlet database, effective marketing

“All marketing expenses become useless if the customer that sees the ad comes to the store and the shelves are empty.

Initially, the distributors only reported on quantities of sold products. We weren’t aware of where the marketing indicated the best results.

When the distributors started giving us information on the outlets in relation with the amount of products they sold, we began to compare this information with our outlets directory and assigned an identifier to each of them.

Now we truly understand to which outlets we ship our products. We can see on what sites our products are sold and conduct our advertising campaigns accordingly and more effectively.”

Mikhail Tronin
Mikhail Tronin

Development Team Leader at Obninskorgsintez

Business constantly faces new challenges. With ELMA, now the business can quickly implement ideas and test business hypotheses, whereas users take advantage from the system flexibility. For us, this is an ongoing project. My advice to those who are only planning on implementing ELMA would be to do it as quickly as possible. Launch it in small iterations, start with small processes. When the management and the users see and really feel that it has become easier for them to work, the business will move towards implementation as well.

Mikhail Tronin
Mikhail Tronin

Development Team Leader at Obninskorgsintez