BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Latin America is one of the largest and fastest growing economic blocks in the world. However, it is also one of the most complex and difficult economic blocks within which to conduct business. Understanding individual country market requirements, market size, market pricing, economic trading partner relationships and cultural differences can mean the difference between success and failure.
Castelmec’s Business Intelligence Service provides detailed individual country market data and competitive product positioning information to allow you to develop strategic and business plans with detail and accuracy. Castelmec will provide support throughout this process from business objectives setting all the way to pro-forma profit and loss statements.
Castelmec’s proprietary approach to market data gathering, unique database of customs information and direct local market access, provide unparalleled accuracy and detail on your product’s target market. This information is synthesized into clearly written, easy to understand, market information reports that can be used to create high-level strategic plans as well as detailed level market access business plans.
Through Castelmec’s logistics management business, we will provide detailed information on product certification, IVA, VAT, freight, customs duties, sales tax and title transfer requirements to provide you detailed local market access requirements and local market landed cost for your product.
CONTACT CENTER SERVICES (SDO and Back Office Operations)
Your decision to enter the Latin American region or simply specific markets within the region is then managed through our Montevideo, Uruguay contact center providing a centralized location for SDO and back office operations services. Through this facility, our direct sales staff first sells your product and then facilitates the shipment of that order into the local market and into the hands of your customer. The pre-selling of product eliminates the need to move large quantities of inventory into a local distributor.
Our contact center houses a team of highly skilled associates and on-site management. This team undergoes monthly product, sales and business process training. It is through this training that Castelmec is able to offer a complete suite of direct sales and back office services including direct and web based sales and post sales support and comprehensive credit function, invoicing and collection back office services.
Our highly skilled team of inside and outside sales associates can quickly and efficiently manage the complete sales process from lead generation, to outbound cold calling and prospect qualifying, to customer conversion, sales and product up-selling, as well as account management and customer retention.
A client specific sales team in one location can facilitate every aspect of securing new customers and managing existing customer relationships. Our customers use their sales team as if they were their own, scheduling regular sales meetings and developing marketing campaigns. With Castelmec, you do not turn your product over to another organization and hope that they respect/value your brand positioning, customer principles and/or price guidelines. You maintain control of your product, you decide who you sell to, where your product will sell and at what price.
Castelmec has developed a proprietary, custom designed ERP system that allows all sales and contact center activities to be tracked in real time through key performance indicators (KPIs). These web based KPIs are available on the sales associates’ dashboard and can be accessed by you to track performance against defined objectives. This gives us, and you, the ability to track product sales performance by country, by product, by customer, by sales associate, or by any other criteria on a real time basis and generate web based reports instantly. We are also in a position to create and maintain comprehensive profiles on every one of your customers in our CRM database, giving you a strategic advantage over the competition.
Our custom designed system also allows us to open cases on customer complaints, issue RMAs on defective product and track each customer service problem, so we can follow-up in a timely manner and provide you with the data you need to prevent problems in the future. Castelmec prides itself on its ability to complement each sale in Latin America with industry-leading customer support and we are committed to continuously improving the customer’s experience and loyalty to your company.
An additional benefit of a centralized contact center is streamlining the process of registering customers and activating their product warranty. The Castelmec ERP system allows you to offer complete manufacturer warranty registration support on all of your products. The Castelmec ERP system can facilitate real time access to this warranty registration database for marketing and product support services.
When you partner with Castelmec, not only do you enjoy world-class sales, marketing and logistics, but customers also receive the benefit of world-class service and customer support – all provided through our ZFM contact center.
LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT AND ORDER FULFILLMENT
SDO is an exclusive component of Castelmec’s unique Latin American delivery model, providing direct sales services that are combined with back office operations and a network of onshore (in-country) fulfillment houses. These fulfillment houses are strategically located to deliver your product directly to your customer from onshore, near-shore and offshore locations throughout Latin America and the United States.
No matter where the Latin American customer is and no matter how large or small the opportunity, Castelmec’s Latin American logistics business will provide onshore customs compliance, importer of record and fulfillment house pick, pack and ship services to deliver your product to your customers quickly and efficiently. Our years of experience and highly trained staff can execute this process with minimal transport time and risk while providing full tracking and service capability, through a single ERP system operated company wide.
When products are needed in any one of the local Latin American markets, Castelmec can quickly transfer those products from one of our regional distribution center partners to local in-country Castelmec distribution centers within a matter of days, fulfilling all local market customs requirements including, all local sales taxes, product certification, title transfer and customs duties. Castelmec can then process orders for customer pick-up or delivery within 48 hours – considerably faster than a Miami-based wholesaler. Our streamlined turnaround translates to quicker response time on local sales, faster delivery to customers and increased customer satisfaction. We also track the delivery process every step of the way through Castelmec’s sophisticated order tracking software.
Castelmec also offers a unique direct purchase option for all your products. Sales for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets are handled through a cloud based e-commerce web store that operates in conjunction with our contact center in Latin America. Through our web site design partner, we can develop a direct sales web purchase option that is tied directly into the Castelmec ERP system and incorporated real time into your KPI’s for tracking purposes. Castelmec is not only capable of transacting business, but is the only company that will accept payments in local currencies though credit cards and/or COD, as well as direct deposit or wire transfer.
These logistical efficiencies and integrated service features combine to improve the customer’s experience, build brand loyalty and firmly establish your product as the product line of choice in the growing Latin American market.
Castelmec’s years of experience in providing market access logistics services through our Latin American locations provides the most effective route to market for your product at the lowest possible landed cost.
EVENT MANAGMENT
A key success factor to any market penetration or growth strategy is participation in local market events. This participation develops or expands product awareness and demonstrates commitment to local market support. It is especially important when establishing first time relations with Latin American companies. Events throughout Latin America take on many forms and venues. These events range from local and regional trade shows to product and market conferences. Getting the most value out of these events is time consuming and costly.
To provide full service outsourced direct sales support to our customers, Castelmec offers an event management service that identifies, categorizes and ranks the attractiveness and market reach of each event in Latin America. We will provide details on each event, including prior history on exhibitors, event attendance and event registration costs.
Castelmec will then provide every aspect of event management from establishing an event budget, event registration, space rental, exhibit structure set-up and promotional material development through on-site service support, hospitality event management, lead gathering and finally exhibit structure tear-down and packing. All of this will then be summarized into a post event report for you to gauge cost benefit analysis and event effectiveness. Castelmec will then use its direct sales contact center to respond to leads gathered at the event, register new customers and grow sales for your product.