Business challenge: Implement a portable system to support sales representatives and provide current market information to management.
Portability, Effectiveness, Speed
Alima-Gerber, a subsidiary of Nestle S.A., produces baby food and
infant formulas leveraging a vast network of sales representatives
across Poland. For this sales team and its managers, access to
immediate and reliable data is crucial for day-to-day operations – and
success.
From a variety of mobile solutions available on the market,
Alima-Gerber selected the ebi.mobile system developed by Anica System
S.A. This decision was based on the reliability and stability of the
system and the years of experience Anica System have in implementing
mobile applications for complex sales structures.
ebi.mobile is a mobile Pocket PC operating system with its primary
function to service sales operations. The entire field sales
organization at Gerber-Alima currently use the ebi.mobile solution to
conduct their activities: customer invoice and account management,
issuing promotional materials, performing exchanges, discounts, returns
and collecting information on the market potential of individual stores
and sales channels. The ebi.mobile solution is based on Sybase
SQL Anywhere UltraLite and Mobilink technologies.
Based on the SQL language for mobile equipment, the portable SQL
Anywhere UltraLite database has full relational capabilities of
database engines, but is designed for use in a limited memory
environment – a perfect fit for the ebi.mobile offering. Providing
utmost flexibility, developers can selectively configure the features
which are required for a specific application of the database.
ebi.mobile uses Mobilink technology from Sybase to ensure two way
synchronization during session modes, and allows data transmission
between any corporate server and the SQL Anywhere UltraLite database or
a full SQL database.
“We and our customers think that Sybase offers the best technology for
building mobile systems.” – says Tomasz Kajdzik, head of the Department
for Implementation of Mobile Anica Systems, and project manager for the
ebi.mobile Implementation Project at Alima-Gerber S.A.
Anica System’s ebi.mobile application is used both by Alima-Gerber
field employees responsible for realizing sales goals, regional
managers, and the team of managers in the company headquarters. As the
result of the ebi.mobile implementation, Alima-Gerber market
development teams gained access to the tools and have been able to
measure very precisely the market potential as well as the
effectiveness of sales and marketing operations.
“Thanks to ebi.mobile, sales representatives of our client have access
to company resources at all times and can analyze historical data
instantly. And all information transmitted by field representatives
instantaneously reaches the headquarters of Alima-Gerber, which can
react faster to the changing market,” says Tomasz Kajdzik.
“The Sybase mobile technology guarantees 100% that our system will
operate effectively even in the case of the most complicated and
complex solutions,” Tomasz Kajdzik, head of the Department for
Implementation of Mobile Anica Systems, and project manager for the
ebi.mobile Implementation Project at Alima-Gerber S.A.
