ILMA Compoundings October 2016 - 18

VOICES & VIEWS

As employers, it's our job to deliver
tools to millennials that help them do
their jobs to the best of their abilities. As
software developers, we need to provide
them with valuable information on their
mobile device. The expectation is that
they should be able to do everything
they need to do on their smartphone. If
they are on a sales call, they expect to be
able to read the history of the company,
find the location, get directions to the
location, learn about the employees
professionally and personally, review
current news, see open orders and order
history, read call reports, view inventory
and look at past pricing. They want even
more, but these are some of the basics.
On the product side, millennials expect
to have access to technical data, how
the product is used, what applications
are running, who else sells it and what
the competitor is charging. As a seller,
you need this information, because the
buyer has access to most of the same
information. Before buyers let you visit
them, they have already looked up who
you are, what products you sell, how
much they pay, who else you sell to
and what your competitor offers as an
alternative. All this information has to be
presented in an easy, cohesive manner.
Once you have the information, the next
step is to act on it.
Turning information into transactions
needs to be easy and fast. The
fundamental design of the application
has to match the interface already
present on most mobile devices. An
interface that requires a lot of data
entry is not going to be successful. It
is imperative that data that has already
been entered is reused in order to make
the transaction simple.
The lubricant industry lends itself to this

Mobile and web-based order transactions
have become mainstream, and millennials now
expect this type of paradigm throughout their
work experience, including internal processes.
process since it is primarily a business
with repeat orders. Each customer buys
a subset of the products offered by a
supplier. The interface must present a
checklist of items that the customer buys
with established prices so that the buyer
or sales representative can easily enter
quantities. Once the order is entered,
an electronic order confirmation needs
to be sent to the buyer immediately. All
other documents that accompany orders,
such as product spec sheets, COAs
and SDSs, should also be immediately
generated. This is what millennials expect
of electronic transactions. It's also what
more and more baby boomers want.
We can credit the millennials for bringing
this change about - their expectations
resulted in huge improvements in order
transactions and confirmations. Mobile
and web-based order transactions have
become mainstream, and millennials now
expect this type of paradigm throughout
their work experience, including internal
processes.
Buying, making and selling products
require operational processes that assure
things get done correctly and accurately.
Many lubricant companies do this by
pushing paper around the office and in
and out of the warehouse. The problem
is that this method is prone to errors
and is extremely inefficient. It's timeconsuming, documents get lost and
there is a lack of information available at
the point of the transaction. Millennials

expect to have this information available
on a mobile device where they can see a
list of tasks to be done in the plant.
For example, using a tablet, RF device or
phone, the shipping department can see
today's orders, pick the order by scanning
the bar code, be notified of last-minute
changes, stage the order, review the
SDS and handling instructions and print
the Bill of Lading. All this can be done
without anyone shuffling paper between
the plant and the office. I know this is not
uniquely a millennial function; well-run
companies have embraced taking steps
out of their processes all along. But
as your workforce changes and more
millennials are employed, they are going
to expect and demand to operate in this
manner.
Millennials are changing the face of
business. Their approach will alter and
revolutionize the workplace. Instead
of questioning their approach, we
should embrace the value it brings. The
little device they walk around with as
their closest companion is a powerful
tool that can improve our business.
Take advantage of their need to have
everything at their fingertips to make
your business more efficient, faster and
smarter.

O'Donnell is president of Datacor Inc.
He may be reached at 973-822-1551 or
swodonnell@datacor.com.

Vol. 66 No. 10 * 18 * October 2016 Compoundings
ILMA Compoundings October 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ILMA Compoundings October 2016
