The Company

RS Car Accessories stands as the pinnacle among the highly competitive car accessory sales and service centers in Nagpur, India. Offering a diverse array of automotive products catering to both vehicle owners and enthusiasts, and serving as authorized dealers for renowned brands such as Alpine, Kenwood, JL Audio, Stanley Leather, and other high-end car electronics, the company has evolved from a modest business to encompassing over 40 different categories of automotive products in just 10 years. Additionally, RS Car Accessories holds the prestigious title of being the official distributor and reseller of Ceramic Shield body detailing products and Sunkool Automotive Films from the USA, serving the Indian market.

The Challenge

As the company expanded its product line and consistently introduced new brands, inventory management became a formidable challenge. Raghav Sukhadia, the director and owner of RS Car Accessories, found himself grappling with operational complexities amidst the growing number of SKUs (stock keeping units).

The key challenges faced by the company included:

• Inadequate inventory tracking.
• Managing customer transaction history.
• Reconciling accounting with physically available stock.
• Streamlining the complete sales cycle with installation tracking.
• Tracking serial numbers for items requiring warranty monitoring.

In an attempt to address these challenges, RS Car Accessories initially turned to MARG, a desktop-based software that assisted them in managing basic inventory needs. However, the program felt cumbersome and lacked a mobile application and a new-age accounting system that could connect to it.

"It was tough for me or my team to monitor live sales or recommend products during customer visits without any real-time insights into product availability. I always had to have a person next to the computer back in the store or warehouse to understand the status of my stock levels then."
  - Raghav Sukhadia, Director, Sunkool Automotive Films, and RS Car Accessories, India

The solution: Finding Zoho Inventory

StrateWorks, a Zoho implementation and consulting partner from Mumbai, began looking for a modern, cloud-based system to resolve the company's inventory problems. Collaborating with StrateWorks, RS Car Accessories decided on Zoho Inventory.

The well-timed implementation of Zoho Inventory turned out to be very beneficial for the company. The company could now optimize their inventory management and have visibility of their inventory level at any given time with live updates on stock movements. Different users and their sales team could now check inventory in real time using the mobile app and manage their orders from anywhere while they are on external site visits.

Representatives could now associate the orders taken with customized order statuses. The team could also track each order based on location along with its completion. This also made the accounting team using Zoho Books happy, as they could now receive notifications once an order was complete. They can also invoice the order based on different predefined criteria.

The seamless integration of Zoho Inventory with Zoho Books, for accounting purposes, helped the team get the best out of all the functionalities, enabling them to synchronize and simplify GST tax filing, while also bringing all order-related data from multiple sales channels into a single system.

The RS Car Accessories team also noted how easy it was to start using Zoho Inventory. Even though their staff, as a whole, is less tech savvy, the company could easily help their employees understand and learn the system thanks to the fluid and user-friendly interface. It all became easier with the Zoho Inventory employee training program, which was more convenient to help train employees who wanted additional help learning the system.

The customer experience also went up multiple folds once Zoho Inventory was integrated with the optimized CRM system, Zoho Bigin. This further enhanced the customer relationships, enabling faster and prompt communication. This extensively helped the team close enquiry-based deals easier and faster.

Benefits and ROI

With a 40% improvement in operational efficiency and increased inventory visibility, the team was able to make better decisions and sell at an accelerated pace. Zoho Inventory enabled RS Car Accessories to streamline business operations, providing real-time insights into inventory levels and seamless order processing. The software also let the company view and manage customer and product details, making it easy to track sales transactions and customer history.

Looking Forward

As their company expands into multiple locations across Nagpur, Sukhadia and his team are experiencing steady growth. They aim to provide the best possible experience for their customers by enhancing their facilities with state-of-the-art upgrades.

In their ongoing journey, the team is focused on expanding dealership opportunities across various regions. Simultaneously, they plan to diversify their portfolio by introducing more products and brands. Leveraging their positive experience with Zoho Inventory, Books, and other applications, the team has chosen to move forward with Zoho's apps to craft their success story and align their future goals closely.

"Our counter sales and order installation at partner outlets has became faster with the integrated invoicing module with sales orders. This now helps our team with faster payment acceptance and sales closures which, in turn, gives us faster order turnaround times."
  - Dewansh Chauhan, Manager, Sunkool Automotive Films

In essence, Zoho Inventory perfectly aligned with the company's requirements, empowering RS Car Accessories to manage business operations efficiently. The company and its subsidiary brands look forward to adding more employees and plans to grow at a faster pace to align with their future goals in conjunction with Zoho apps.