Speciality Breads is a leading supplier of artisanal baked goods across the UK, from simple breads to sweets and everything in between.
The Overview.
Speciality Breads is one of the leading suppliers of artisanal baked goods for the UK. Ranging from simple bread loaves to complex sweet treats, Speciality has made it a point since their inception in 1994 to use locally sourced ingredients, support their local communities, and make sure every product is made with that little extra care. They use 100% British made flours, exclusively from Red Tractor certified farms in the UK.
The Challenge.
Speciality was getting by using regular excel spreadsheets and SAGE software but felt like they needed to change and find a better solution. The need for an easy to use, accessible tool for sales data was truly amplified after seeing sales-i in action.
Their team was getting bogged down at every turn, manually searching spreadsheets and interpreting the data themselves, when possible, line by line. “We didn’t use data much at all in our conversations with customers as it was too difficult to get access to. The sales teams were flying blind a lot of the time and if they needed info, they’d have to request it well in advance of a meeting to ensure that we had time to prepare it.” They were losing both time and money by spending hours on data when their sales team wanted to be making connections with customers and finding solutions instead of finding problems.
The Solution.
While they knew they needed a new solution, Speciality Breads wasn’t quite sure where to look for help. At first, they were just looking for something to lift some weight off their team. “We needed simplicity rather than deep levels of data.” managing director Simon Cannell said. “Most importantly, we needed a system that people would use. I would rather have a little less data, but it be used rather than a huge level of detail, but no-one uses it.”
sales-i was able to bring that muscle and wealth of raw data without being overcomplicated or hard to learn and use. From the get-go sales-i “seemed simple to use, was easily accessible by the whole team, and had friendly staff and support.” It saved them effort and maintenance, while drastically cutting down on time and brain power to find those gaps in sales and money-making opportunities.
The Results.
sales-i adoption and utilization at Speciality Breads has made an impact company-wide, from the top down. They’re using every tool available in sales-i to make a difference, from the big picture at the Director level with YTD Sales and Volume reports, all the way to boots on the ground sales work, utilizing the Full Picture and Variants reports.
The amount of time being saved by the company makes all the difference as it gives the bandwidth for the Speciality team to tackle new projects that have been put off. The team is no longer slogging through spreadsheets by hand but taking the actionable data and plain English talking points provided by sales-i and using it to really make a difference.
The Future.
With the wealth of information obtained through sales-i, Speciality Breads has been able to revolutionize just how they do business day to day. Looking ahead, their real focus will be on identifying any trends or drop-offs in customers’ spending habits and tackling them head on. The expediency and immediacy sales-i can provide can really make or break that deal.
In addition to monitoring their customers’ habits, Speciality Breads is also focusing on running a major campaign to switch their customers to new Plant-based options of their products. Not only is Speciality Breads revolutionizing their business operations of today, but they’re also looking to the future of the industry and how they can stay industry leaders into the future.
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