Coming in the Next Few Months

Hello Ai2 blog readers!

Just some quick hits:

-We've added several new clients to the Ai2 family in the past few months. Visit our newsroom at this link.

-POET is chugging along brilliantly and several of our existing OrderWriter customers are making the migration. We're working on adding scanning capability so you can use a Netbook instead of a larger or bulkier laptop. The price is right on Netbooks, too - sometimes they're practically free if you buy a data plan.

-We're getting ready for the AWMA show in March - we're going to be making a huge splash with our ACE application for MSI/Telxon replacement. You already know about the ways that old devices are burning your cash. Check out how affordable it can be to cut wasted time and energy out of your workday. You'll be hearing from us soon on what else you can expect at the AWMA show.

-If you're a current Ai2 client, remember that your suite can be expanded to cover basic and advanced customers, salespeople inside and out as well as your sales management staff. Call us at (800) 835-3200 to talk about expanding your suite today.

A Note About The Name Change

Hi! We've changed our name. Our website has been http://www.ai2.com/ for many years now, but we just changed our company name and logo to Ai2. It's shorter and snappier and helps people find us on the web more easily.

That's all we've changed though, so we want to reassure our loyal clients that we haven't changed our software or been bought or had any other shakeups. We just gave the old logo a makeover. We had an internal contest to find the winner, and our IT Manager Dan Katich brought in the winning design. Congratulations, Dan!

We've got a lot more news coming soon, mainly about events in the foodservice, C-store, and paper industries. Check back here often.

Thanks,

The Ai2 Team

Do You Compete With McLane?

Do you compete with McLane Company? If you're in foodservice, grocery or C-Store in the United States, the answer is yes. They've got 38 distribution centers moving over 40,000 different products from coast to coast. They're huge, and it's difficult to compete with those kinds of resources.

But you still have to compete and you still can.

This article highlights the solution McLane will deploy to their retailers to help them become better buyers. The solution will go live in September 2009 and is a complete Telxon replacement for the customer environment.

Have you lost business to McLane in the past? Let's say a prospect was considering making you their primary provider. If they mentioned that McLane had offered them a brand new handheld system that scans, orders, prints shelf tags, shows item status in color and much more, what would you say? Can you compete or are you going to toss 'em a Telxon and hope your local McLane rep forgets their address?

Level the playing field today by employing technology to help grow your sales and cut order processing costs without relying on ancient devices.

Do you have Telxons to replace? Customers to retain? Sales to grow? You sure do. You CAN compete with McLane when you use Access' customer order entry solutions. Best of all, you can mix and match between two different applications to give the right one to the right customer.

You and your customers get all the benefits and functionality of the McLane system. Did we mention we can tell you how to make it pay for itself?

Check out your options at Access' website and give us a call for your demo today.

Telxon Troubles: The Top Five

Lots of distributors use Telxon and MSI devices for their customers and sales reps to place orders. These devices work OK and they’re cheap, which makes them appealing to distributors looking to lower their IT investment.

Among the drawbacks of these older devices is the fact that they’re no longer manufactured, which means every Telxon you buy nowadays is refurbished. A lot of them also rely on acoustic coupler technology, which requires a pay phone to send in an order if you’re a sales rep.

When was the last time you used a pay phone? From where you are right now, do you know where the nearest pay phone is?

We hear distributors referring to Telxons as “dumb” all the time. If you had someone who worked for you (an employee, vendor, etc.) and you referred to them as “dumb,” wouldn’t someone ask why you still relied on them? I just talked to a distributor yesterday who was complaining about all the time he and his staff were wasting "babysitting" the Telxons. I thought this was a great analogy.

There are many other ways that Telxons create hassles and slow distributors down. We've condensed it to the top five, please add yours in the comments. Here are…

Five Ways That Telxons and MSIs Cost You Time and Prevent Sales Every Day

1. Customers don’t have up-to-date information on what they’re ordering. They might order discontinued or wrong items. This wastes time when you have to double-check orders. It can lead to empty space on your delivery truck and a “hole” in a customer’s shelf.

2. Telxons have trouble scanning both UPC bar codes and shelf labels. Many distributors need to scan both. Do you?

3. Acoustic modem communications are not reliable and can cause errors and/or incomplete orders.

4. Telxons are not manufactured anymore. New parts are not available. Hardware failure costs you time and money. What’s the total cost of ownership when you add in downtime and maintenance?

5. By failing to promote specials and other hot items at the point of order, distributors who rely on Telxons are missing sales every day. In a competitive marketplace, no one can afford to miss out on business they should be capturing and growing.

Do you use Telxons? What are your Telxon/MSI pet peeves? Please tell us in the comments or visit us here if you’re looking for a better alternative.

Happy ordering,

The Access Team

Welcome to the Access International Blog

Hello and welcome to the official blog for Access International. We are a software developer founded in 1986 and we serve the wholesale/distribution marketplace with our suite of order entry solutions.

We are headquartered in Chicago, IL and our clients include several Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller, family-owned distributors. We help companies save money, time, paper, gas and other valuable resources with our software systems that interface with the software they're already using.

Our solutions help companies stay on top of market trends, outpace competitors, add value to retail customers and go green. If you are a distributor, our solutions are designed to help you sell more, period.

Please bookmark this blog (or "Follow" if you are a fellow Blogger) and check back for updated information on our solutions.

See our official website at www.ai2.com where you can schedule your personalized demo of our solutions. Email us at sales@ai2.com.
Follow us on Facebook - search for Access International Software Solutions.

Talk to you soon!