QuoteManager: what is it and why do you need it?

Thanks to technological progress, we now live in a world where it’s easier than ever before to communicate with anyone, from anywhere. In business, new and faster communication practices have led to the boom of multinational companies and have created new challenges when it comes to productivity and team-work. Indeed, in a lot of modern companies, employees aren’t always in the same place at the same time, there might be several offices in different countries, or maybe people are working at home… In these conditions, how can we make sure that everyone is up-to-date on the latest projects?

If you think about it, to optimise the efficiency of a geographically scattered team, besides a nice boss you really only need three things: 1/ a way for your team members to talk to each other and to keep a trace of what is said 2/ a synchronised shared data storage space for team members to access files and 3/ a task management system that provides status updates and other key information to assigned team members.

These things, separately, already exist of course. But what if we told you that we, at 4BIS, developed a piece of software that combines all three aspects? QuoteManager is a very helpful tool that streamlines your business internal communication and maximise your employees’ productivity and comfort, by centralising everything they need to know about a project on one straight-forward, user-friendly platform.

Quote Manager and Silver Tiger Logistics, the success story

Silver Tiger Logistics (STL) is a provider of logistics services covering the entire supply chain from load-planning and warehouse supervision to accompanying the shipment at site and on board. The company manages air-freight, ground-freight and sea-freight with a base-network across the globe and key hub offices in the USA, the UK and the Netherlands. STL ensures high-quality care and full transparency throughout the chain, which is the main reason why it has secured the commitment and loyalty of high-end clients, such as major pharmaceutical companies, original equipment manufacturers or luxury automotive suppliers.

A few years ago, Silver Tiger Logistics came to us with a problem: basically, they were handling cargo faster than they were actually communicating about it with everyone involved on the jobs. And nobody has time to spend hours on the phone to double check with Linda whether Brad told her that Client Smith had written to Sophie about the information given to him by Jason… you get it.

So, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work, to bring STL the tech solution they needed for a better business performance. Today, many STL employees use QuoteManager daily. We are like proud mummies, seeing our very own homemade technology do well and completely reshaping the company’s operational processes.

How it works is extremely simple. First, the user logs in to the QuoteManager platform and lands on to his dashboard, where he will find all the quotes listed by either him or his colleagues.

When a user creates a new quote to answer a market enquiry, QuoteManager attributes it a unique tracing number and automatically creates a folder with the same quote number in a shared e-mail box. From now on everyone on the team, wherever they are, can follow up on all communication exchanges related to that quote. QuoteManager platform is integrated with Office 365 and Dropbox, which allows users to create, upload, store, download or modify files in a quote folder. Once a quote becomes an actual project, all the necessary documentation is gathered in that one same folder: shipping documents, invoices, vehicle registration documents, client information, etc.

Great, right? But wait, there is more!

For every quote, the user can modify the status of the project: “quote” means that the project is still being negotiated with the client, “job” means that the shipment is in progress / in transit, “pending” means that it is awaiting payment… Quotes can also be archived, for example if the client is unsure or postpone the service, and reopened later when the client comes back. With a simple filter search, the user can easily find quotes back thanks to the tracing numbers or with the client’s name, the countries or products in question.

We built QuoteManager for Silver Tiger Logistics but it is customizable at wish and can be specifically set up for any business. Is your company lacking an integrated IT system that assists you with customer relationship management, project management AND team management? Do you want to transform your business for the better, while making your employees AND your clients happy? Do you want to do that in the most affordable, time-efficient and convenient way there is?

Then QuoteManager is your answer! Get yours today and find out more about all the cool 4BIS software!