While basic ERP and CRM systems have been around a long time, there are more and more software programs designed specifically for the lighting and electrical markets. Here’s a look at some that I’ve been hearing about and some that I’ve researched online. This is not intended as endorsements for any of them, but rather to show the types of programs available to the industry.
PICKAXE
PICKAXE was created by a lighting agency principal for lighting agents and their manufacturers. It addresses:
- Minimizing mistakes from the sales process
- Customer satisfaction (post-sales)
- Employee performance vs. compensation
- Manufacturer relationships and expectations
- Linecard additions / upgrades
- Collection of late A/R
- Adding Outside Salespeople
- Adding CSRs and Quoters to support outside sales staff
- Creating SOPs, business plans, and performance metrics.
PICKAXE provides Agents and Manufacturers with data analysis tools that promote agent best practices and forecast MFG Pipelines. More information is available here.
PARSPEC
PARSPEC is designed to provide sales agents and distributors an AI-powered platform to support product selection, quoting, & submittals. It is intended to boost productivity to bid more jobs, grow revenue, and improve profitability. See the image below. More information here.
IDEA ORDRTRAK
IDEA OrdrTrak creates efficiency for both suppliers and customers by providing order status information in real time through one connection. Customers can see order status information for ALL suppliers on one screen and suppliers can efficiently connect to their customers and reduce the burden on their staff to provide order updates. This software is intended for manufacturers, distributors, reps, and contractors. More information here.
REPFABRIC
Repfabric is a CRM and Sales Data Management Platform for multi-line sales teams. It was designed to help reps / agents in both the spec channel (calling on specifiers) as well as the stock & flow distribution channel. Repfabric addresses:
- Track your spec work through to the commission check
- Assign jobs to specific salespeople that drive them through to purchase orders and commission checks
- Share jobs deal funnels with manufacturers in their own CRM using CRMSync®
- Follow up on open quotes with OASIS integration, within the mobile app
- Dictate sales call notes and set action items using voice-to-text
- Generate distributor YTD sales comparison reports from the mobile app
- Deep understanding of jobs/projects, updated right from Outlook or Gmail
- Manufacturer-specific opportunity tracking while chasing the whole job
- Creating commission-based compensation plans for salespeople (transfer reports and net vs gross sales)
- Create reports at the part/product number level for detailed analysis
- Manage SPA documentation and pricing levels
More information on Repfabric is available here.
ACCTIVATE
Acctivate is a lighting showroom software fitted with mobile warehouse management. It is designed to help small to mid-sized businesses streamline operations and optimize growth at an affordable cost. It assists lighting distributors with streamlining warehouse and showroom operations using barcoding hardware, to dramatically reduce inaccurate inventory counts and order mistakes.
A mobile warehouse management system:
- Monitors inventory counts in real-time.
- Tracks available inventory & location.
- Alerts on inventory pre-committed to customers or production orders.
- Minimizes labor with mobile order picking – warehouse employees scan product barcodes with quantity needed.
- Within a showroom, easily creates sales order with mobile device.
- Tracks serial & lot numbers.
Acctivate’s mobile warehouse management accelerates sales, processing and order fulfillment, while nearly eliminating errors, streamlining operations. More information here.
Image: PARSPEC
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