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Bridge-x Connect for Distributor and channel management

Bridge-x Connect is a portal-based solution for distributor and channel management. The solution allows you to share critical information such as orders and returns status, pricing, product availability, leads and opportunities, special promotions and discounts, performance scorecards, KPIs, analytics and any other vital notifications with your distributors in real-time.

Bridge-x Connect allows your sales channels to transact, collaborate and communicate with your internal sales and service teams with real-time integration to your backend ERP, CRM and call center systems.

Distributor and channel management solution.
Allows your internal and external users to view and act on same information.
Secure role-based application with complete integration with SAP ERP and CRM systems.
Allows your internal staff (sales, service & order desk) to have full visibility into your distributors’ transactions and communication.
Flexible and customizable – wide range of widgets available, from order status to invoicing to sales analytics etc.
Allows you to share leads and opportunities with your distributors and channel partners.
Powerful product configurator with integration to SAP ERP.
Intuitive user interface for critical tasks like quote generation, order entry, product availability and pricing
Makes all interaction with distributors (chat, email, order notes) visible to your sales & customer support teams.
Ability to seamlessly integrate with content management system to serve relevant content (datasheets, MSDS sheets, brochures, sales presentations, product videos and demos) with distributors and sales.
All data is always stored in your backend applications like SAP ERP, CRM, SFA etc.
Ability to provide mobile access (e.g.: iPad) for your users.

Improve revenue potential & distributor loyalty

Make it easy for distributors to do business with your organization
- Order statuses, alerts, information, scorecards, transactions, easy Product search

Improved productivity tools for your distributors

Make it easy for distributors/dealers to run their business
- Productivity tools such as reconciliation, Upload list of products form spreadsheets for pricing, product availability, pricing wizard

Improved collaboration and communication between Sales, Customer Service and your distributors

Make it easy for Sales, Customer Support to provide accurate, real-time information to distributors.

Improve customer satisfaction and reduce customer service costs

Ensure quick turnaround, improve efficiency and effectiveness while driving down customer service costs

Measure and manage your distributor network’s performance

Make it easy for your organization and the distributor’s organization to monitor and manage the business
- Performance Scorecards, Reports, Analytics on distributor behavior, Quote conversions, Incentives/Rebate calculators

Bridge-x Connect for Distributor management has been developed on SAP Netweaver CE. The solution also utilizes technologies such as JavaScript (ExtJS), HTML etc for user interfaces.

For non-mobile deployments, Bridge-x Customer 360 requires the following environments: SAP Netweaver CE (7.2 or higher).

It is assumed that you already run SAP ERP (version 4.7 or higher; preferably ECC 5.0 or ECC 6.0), CRM (it is not mandatory) and a data warehousing application (again, not mandatory).

Mobile deployment scenarios depend on mobile devices, operating systems etc. Please contact us if you are interested in exploring Customer 360 options for your mobile users.

About the solution
- In a few sentences, tell me what Bridge-x Connect is all about.
  - Bridge-x Connect is a B2B Distributor Engagement Platform. It allows your company to transact, communicate and collaborate with your distributors, dealers and partners. Bridge-x Connect makes it easy for your partners to do business with you while making it easy for you to monitor and manage your external sales channel.
- How is it different from other B2B distribution management portals?
  - Bridge-x Connect is tightly and seamlessly integrated with your systems of record: SAP ERP and CRM. It is not a standalone system. This eliminates any duplication of data as all transactions, updates, communications and interactions are stored in the backend systems. If you see our software, you will observe that we deliver a vastly superior user experience: usability, performance & security are the three cornerstones of our design.
- Does Bridge-x Connect integrate with our SAP system?
  - Yes. Bridge-x Connect is fully integrated with SAP applications (ERP, CRM) using Web Services.
- What about security? Can any user see any data?
  - Bridge-x recommends named user access to all systems where applicable. This ensures two levels of security. Bridge-x Web application provides User interface level Role based security to control each user's view of the application. The web services that provide data from the back end applications then rely on your back-end security settings to provide data level security.
- Is Bridge-x Connect for my external users only or also for internal users?
  - Bridge-x Connect is for all users, both internal and external. Because it is role-based, you can create external roles that get only a certain view of the Customer 360 information. Typical roles created by our customers include Distributor Buyer, Account Representative, Distributor Admin and Sales Manager. The solution allows you to create as many roles, internal or external, to meet the needs of your organization.
- What am I buying? Software? Service? Or both?
  - Bridge-x Connect is a combination of software and professional services. Our B2B implementation experts will guide you through the entire process, from helping you identify roles and information needs, build data mapping rules across multiple applications, design a solution for your customer hierarchies, security rules, performance and most importantly building a real and result oriented roadmap to achieve the goals. So yes, the short answer is "Both".
- How do you price Bridge-x Connect?
  - License fee for the software plus implementation fees. Fees toward support services are additional.
- Is Bridge-x Connect available for Mobile users?
  - Yes! Bridge-x Connect is available for mobile (tablet) users.
- Who hosts your web solutions?
  - Our web solution is typically hosted and managed by our customers' IT department. As there is no data stored in Bridge-x Connect, it also makes it ideal for hosting by third-party providers.
- What technology is the mobile app developed in?
  - "Bridge-x Connect To Go" is available on SAP Sybase Unwired Platform.
- Do you have a list of existing widgets you can send me?
  - Please write to us at sales@bridge-x.com from your company email id and we will provide you more details.
- What do we do if we need additional functionality that is not currently available in your application?
  - We recognize that in spite of our growing list of applications, widgets templates, you will always have information needs that are unique to you. Our Bridge-x Connect platform is designed to scale to meet your needs. We offer the full range of services to accommodate any such requests; from requirements assessment to solution conception and from rapid prototyping to deployment.
Users
- Can I control who sees what information?
  - Bridge-x Connect offers complete control over each user's access to information. Your organization's security and authorizations are an integral part of the solution as we design and implement the information access model.
Implementation
- How long does it take to implement Bridge-x Connect?
  - Implementation of Bridge-x Connect is a function of your information needs, readiness of data sources, complexity of business rules and most importantly, performance and security requirements. Typical implementation times are around 4-6 months.
- Can we implement the functionality in phases?
  - Yes. As your business changes, the sales information needs also change. Our solution's modular architecture allows you to implement the functionality in phases based on priorities and needs. Our experts will guide you during the assessment on the recommended roadmap.
- Is an assessment necessary before embarking on an implementation?
  - The assessment reduces your implementation risk and helps you in clearly defining project objectives, roadmap, roles and responsibilities and the budget to achieve the result.
- How do you charge for implementation?
  - During the assessment, we arrive at the implementation costs based on the roles and responsibilities. We provide a fixed fee for the next immediate phase and an estimate for the rest of the phases.
License and Pricing
- How do you price Bridge-x Connect?
  - Please write to us at sales@bridge-x.com for pricing details.
- Do we need a Netweaver license to run Bridge-x Connect?
  - As Bridge-x Connect is built on SAP Netweaver CE 7.2 Application server, Netweaver CE 7.2 license is mandatory.
- Will we need additional SAP licenses?
  - We recommend "named user security" across the landscape. This may require investment in additional SAP backend licenses. Bridge-x can help uncover these requirements during the assessment phase.
- Do we need Sybase (SUP) for mobile implementations?
  - Yes. Bridge-x Connect to go is currently available only on SAP Sybase Unwired Platform
Technology
- What is the underlying technology for Bridge-x Connect?
  - Bridge-x Connect is built on SAP NetWeaver CE 7.2. The application logic is written in Java. The User interface is built using Javascript, HTML and ExTJS form Sencha technologies.
Support
- How will my IT team support Bridge-x Connect after go-live?
  - We offer two options to our customers: Knowledge transfer to internal IT organization for customers who wish to support the solution in-house. We also offer comprehensive production support capability as an outsourced service using our onsite/remote delivery model with pre-defined service level agreements.
- How will my SAP ERP/CRM upgrade impact Bridge-x Connect?
  - We recommend full regression testing for technical ERP upgrades. Functional ERP or CRM upgrades will require testing and assessment of the change based on the backend process change.

Solutions

Next Steps

Call us: 1-609-371-7101 (US)
Sales enquiries: sales@bridge-x.com
Career enquiries: jobs@bridge-x.com