PCNA handles over a hundred thousand orders in a quarter.

Over a hundred thousand. In one quarter.

It’s an astounding volume. Especially when you consider the complexity of an average order in our industry. As we all know, everything in our industry is variable data: custom colors, unique logos, quantities, sizes, line copy, decoration methods, and it’s all done under fiercely tight deadlines.

Given the complexity, if this industry has one major flaw, it’s in antiquated processing systems that we’ve come to accept as normal.

But commonsku and PCNA wanted to change this.

Back in Q4 of 2022, commonsku and PCNA worked to make ePOs a reality through the commonsku platform. In less than a month, commonsku achieved the fastest integration of ePOs than with any other partner at PCNA. In September (2022), only 2% of all PCNA purchase orders were sent in by ePO. By December of that year, 50% of all purchase orders were sent straight from a distributor’s hands into commonsku and directly into PCNA’s ERP.

“50% of Your Orders are On Hold”

ePOs are purchase orders transferred electronically. They go straight from the distributor's hands into the commonsku order entry system, which then transfers directly into the PCNA production system. This process bypasses any manual key entry, creating a touchless ePO process.

Matt Miller, Director of Customer Success Operations at PCNA, is one of the architects behind getting those thousands of orders produced. Matt’s team supports anything that goes through the Art or Order Processing teams at PCNA.

According to Matt, on average, about 50% of all distributor orders that go to PCNA through a traditional purchase order process are incorrect or have missing information. Erin Harris, Director of Sales at PCNA Canada, said that number sometimes surges to upwards of 70%.

To put this plainly: 5 (sometimes 7) out of 10 orders submitted by a distributor today –to any supplier– have incorrect information or are missing information; that’s half of the industry’s orders immediately ON HOLD.

I asked Matt to explain what happens to a traditional (non-ePO order) when ‌it’s missing information or has incorrect information and gets held up.

“When we receive an order and it doesn't specify (let's just say) the specific decorating method,” Matt continued. “And the item itself calls for multiple decorating methods. The first step in the order process is handled by our order entry team. They're responsible for entering the order and then they'll apply an ‘order action’ to the hold for the missing information. So, at any given time, there could be multiple order actions that we're looking to gain information from. It could be a missing ship-to address, an imprint color, or maybe there's a price discrepancy. From there, the order is quickly assigned to an order processing specialist who then works closely with our customer to promptly resolve any missing order information.”

I asked Matt, “Then, to resolve this, the primary communication back and forth with the distributor customer is via … email?”

“Yes, they primarily engage with the customer via email unless a customer specifies on their P.O. specifically to be contacted [only by] phone.”

“How many times do you think an incorrect or incomplete order gets communicated back and forth with the customer before it's resolved?”

“That’s a difficult one, But I'd say there could be a number of interactions, potentially even more than a dozen, depending on the missing information and receiving the information from the customer.”

Stop for a minute and consider this: Upwards of a dozen interactions –on a single order– will sideline a distributor, meanwhile, their inbox is already on fire with the next round of client projects. Every order on hold is not merely a potentially missed deadline, it’s high opportunity costs for both the supplier and the distributor.

For every order on hold, it’s a step backward, delaying new sales opportunities and creating more (unnecessary) work on a sale that is already completed.

Deadlines, Deadlines, Deadlines

Distributors live by deadlines, or “in-hands” date, or “need-by” date. It’s the golden rule when it comes to production, and it’s a merciless rule to live by, but it’s the reality for any distributor’s life.

I pushed Matt for a few more answers on this, “When I lived my life as a distributor, I would erroneously think that when I submitted my PO, no matter what if I successfully got my order in under the deadline, it would ship within the 5-day or 3-day or 24-hour window. I would think, I’m in the clear. But if there's any mistake on it at all or any missing information, it puts a pause on my order. This unquestionably impacts deadlines.”

“Yeah, it does,” he replied. “When we don't get a PO that has all the information we've got to assign order actions to that order and then make customer contact to clear up that information.”

An ePO “Cuts the Line,” Secures Inventory, and Gets Done First

“And maybe as crucial,” I asked Matt, “This not only impacts my deadline on this project for my most important customer, it affects inventory allocation, correct? This means, as a distributor, if I've been told there are a thousand of these mugs in inventory, I think: I’ve got to get my order in now so I can secure 500 of those pieces. But I'm not securing those orders until it’s a clean PO, correct?”

“Yes,” Matt replied. ”Always make 100% sure that you've submitted a clean PO so you can secure inventory and so that we can get it to production as fast as possible.”

Neil Ringle, CEO of Polyconcept, PCNA’s parent company, put it bluntly: “A clean order on an ePO cuts the line and gets done first.”

Why an ePO Works

Neil continued, “ePOs come into us electronically, and because they come in electronically, commonsku requires certain fields and data to be in there. So when we get that PO, it's a clean order and it goes right into our system with no human intervention, and that means faster turnaround times. I think all of us know, and I think the entire distributor community knows, that there's a lot of back and forth that takes place on an order, often because somebody left something off inadvertently, a field isn't fully complete. The ePO solves so many of those problems. For us, it is about expediency. One of the things we talked about is a fast order and a fast order starts with getting the right information.”

Matt shared, “ePOs are crucial to solving these processing challenges. And what I previously described --all those holds on a traditional order—for an ePO it’s different. When it comes in, it automatically goes into our [order entry] system and straight to our art department. So, it bypasses the manual order entry processing specialist who is making customer contact on any missing information and goes straight to art for production setup. It significantly advances the order through the process and secures the inventory right away.”

Polyconcept CEO Neil Ringle posed the real problem succinctly, “I think this industry has accepted that this [incomplete, inaccurate way of working] is a cost of doing business. I just don't believe that. And I think what commonsku is doing with the ePO, what we're doing to receive the ePOs, PromoStandards, all of those things, lead to a better, more elevated experience. The one thing none of us can get back is time, right? We know that account executives out there who are selling, certainly don't have enough time in their day. Going back and forth on a PO is something that can be eliminated. That time could be used to actually sell something or serve somebody and not just work to get an order to flow through the system. Ideally, we'd love to see a hundred percent of our business be like this now.”

In December of 2022, when we hit a record-breaking adoption level with PCNA, Erin Harris and Emily Douglas (PCNA Regional Sales Manager) talked about how those distributors who are digitally integrated with tools like PromoStandards and ePOs, are seeing significantly outpaced growth than those who are not integrated.

How You Can Get Ahead w/ ePOs

1. If you’re not on commonsku: check us out here. Our dev team has a rigorous process we go through to develop an ePO process with suppliers to create a seamless order entry system for you. Our mission is to make the complex simple because your work should be easier and fun. To check out more benefits about our PCNA integration visit us here. 

    

2. If you are on commonsku: Here’s how to create and submit an electronic purchase order (ePO). Be sure you have activated PCNA as a supplier (reach out to Digital Services digitalservices@pcna.com). And be sure you and your team are using ePOs! Training your team to adopt the ePO process will help free your time and allow you to focus on growth and future sales and if you ever run into any trouble or need us, email support@commonsku.com, we’d love to help!

Thanks to our friends at PCNA for an incredible partnership that makes all of our clients’ lives easier!