How Wenaas Workwear manages deliveries to customers worldwide
.jpg "Inger-Anne Oswald, Wenaas Workwear")
About Inger-anne oswald
Inger-Anne Oswald serves as the Sales Controller at Wenaas Workwear, with a diverse range of responsibilities. Her role commences with the onboarding of new employees, including the introduction to sales support programs. She is extensively involved in the implementation of new solutions, contracts, templates, and agreement design. A significant part of her responsibilities involves ensuring that customer relations and deliveries align with agreed-upon terms. Additionally, she diligently manages the budgets for each salesperson.
ABOUT wenaas workwear
Many globally renowned companies with high demands for employee attire share a common thread: they source all their workwear directly from Wenaas Workwear, a longstanding establishment located in Måndalen, just outside Åndalsnes on the Norwegian northwest coast. Every day, over one million individuals don equipment from Wenaas Workwear, which has been delivering uniforms and various attire to oil workers, sailors, construction workers, drivers, firefighters, retail employees, and more for over 90 years.
"We have historically undergone several acquisitions and have many locally employed staff around the world. This resulted in many employees being unfamiliar with the details of all agreements. There was also a lot of information within individual departments that we, at the central level, were unaware of. Add to that the occasional arrival of new customer relations managers who previously lacked a comprehensive view of the agreements they were handling. This created too much unnecessary friction."
- Inger-Anne Oswald, Sales Controller
Background
Approximately 90% of Wenaas Workwear's sales are directly negotiated between customers and are fulfilled from their state-of-the-art Autostore warehouse. Managing roughly 250 contracts involving the delivery of physical products to global customers, valued at nearly 1 billion Norwegian Kroner, requires robust and predictable contract management. Often, uniforms need customization, and Wenaas Workwear takes responsibility for inventory, setting high standards for deliveries, which often extend to locations worldwide.
As Sales Controller Inger-Anne Oswald explains: "Ensuring customer satisfaction isn't just about selling as much as possible; it's about selling what was agreed upon. The customer's demands regarding quality, design, fit - there are numerous choices defined in the agreement. Our job is to implement the agreement within the customer's organization, and in doing so, we should not deviate from what was centrally agreed upon."
Challenges
While forward-looking e-commerce solutions and extensive digital experience have made it easier to meet significant customer demands for trade, deliveries, and settlements, human interaction remains essential. Agreements are both made and managed at all Wenaas Workwear locations. In the past, agreements were stored locally, making it challenging for all involved parties to be aware of the covered types of deliveries.
Inger-Anne points out that close customer contact can sometimes lead to orders that are not in the customer's best interest to fulfill: "When our customer relations managers interact with a significant number of people at various geographical locations within our customer base, we often receive requests for deliveries that later turn out to fall outside the agreement. Typically, it benefits neither the customer nor us to deviate from the agreements, so to adhere to the agreements, it's crucial that we have easy access to the contracts to determine their obligations."
Process
Wenaas Workwear embarked on a journey to define the contents of agreements, establish an authorization structure, and create a centralized archive for these agreements. They also needed to know when agreements commenced and concluded and be notified well in advance. Inger-Anne notes:
"Complete Control is incredibly user-friendly software that makes us feel like advanced users. In the beginning, and sometimes along the way, we needed assistance from Karoline and the House of Control team. The service has been prompt, competent, and friendly. We greatly appreciate this in our busy daily routine."
Improvements
"With a centralized contract archive, we have a complete overview of our obligations. The archive serves as a reference that we can quickly access when we need to find various parameters within an agreement. We have clarity. We don't need to search. It's right there."
"We have a complete overview of our agreements and continuously register new ones. With employees in several countries, it's practical to have a shared archive. The archive also makes it easy to transition customer relations management responsibilities to others."
How Wenaas Workwear manages deliveries to customers worldwide
Large companies have high demands when purchasing workwear and equipment for their employees. For Wenaas Workwear, maintaining full control over customer agreements is essential to fulfilling their commitments.
"We must ensure that the right person at each company can order the right products from us. This requires a deep understanding of how each individual company operates and is organized. Only then can we do a good job."
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