A made-up industrial-supplies distributor. Its answers, and what came back.
A regional distributor of industrial supplies, shipping about 300 orders a week, mostly to accounts it already has. NetSuite runs the books; email and spreadsheets run a lot of the rest.
The business is made up, and so are its answers. Everything below them is what the site gives back, unedited: the same page you'd see at the end of the questions.
Their 14 answers
- Before we start — where do you think AI could help you most?
- Moving data between systems without re-typing
- And in your own words — which processes are the most painful or annoying right now?
- Orders arrive by email and PDF, get typed into the ERP by hand, then typed again for the carrier.
- Have you already tried to fix this?
- Hired someone for it
- If twice as much work landed next month, which part would break first?
- Taking it. Getting orders in, priced and confirmed without losing them.
- Where does most of your work come from?
- Mostly repeat volume from accounts we already have.
- You said the first thing to break would be winning work — but most of your volume comes from accounts you already have. If you could halve the effort on one side of the business, which would let you grow fastest?
- Winning new work.
- How do orders from your existing accounts arrive?
- Email and phone calls. Someone reads and keys every one.
- Which systems does the business run on?
- NetSuite; Spreadsheets, email and paper carry a lot of it
- Where does the work actually get lost?
- We're too slow confirming an order.
- Roughly how many of these do you handle?
- 300 orders per week
- How long from order received to confirmation out?
- A day or two, depending on who's free.
- When someone works on confirming an order, what are they mostly doing?
- Assembling the same thing from the same places, every time.
- How much of confirming an order runs through one person?
- Mostly one person, but someone could cover.
- How do you find out why you lost one?
- We ask, sometimes, if we know them well.
From here down is their page, so “you” means them. It opens: You told us the limit is winning the work — and the process you named is confirming an order, at about 300 orders per week. Built from the 14 answers you gave.
About this section: First, where they thought AI would help, set against where their answers pointed; the gap is often the most useful line on the page. Then each answer that marked a problem, in the words they picked.
What stands out in your answers.
You came in thinking AI could help most with “Moving data between systems without re-typing”. Your answers bear out re-keying between systems, and also point at no visibility of status, document production and unstructured intake, among others.
- Where the drag is
How do orders from your existing accounts arrive?
Email and phone calls. Someone reads and keys every one.
Every piece of work starts with a person reading something and deciding what it is. That is the single most automatable step in your process, and it is currently the first one.
- Where the drag is
When someone works on confirming an order, what are they mostly doing?
Assembling the same thing from the same places, every time.
The same inputs, the same steps, the same output, every time. Work with that shape does not get better with experience, which is a strong signal about who should be doing it.
- Worth watching
Which systems does the business run on?
Spreadsheets, email and paper carry a lot of it
A real share of the record lives in spreadsheets and inboxes rather than in a system. Every hand-off between the two is a re-key, and nothing in a spreadsheet can be seen by anyone who is not looking at it.
- Worth watching
How long from order received to confirmation out?
A day or two, depending on who's free.
Your response time depends on who is available rather than on the work itself. That is a capacity problem wearing a process problem's clothes.
- Worth watching
How much of confirming an order runs through one person?
Mostly one person, but someone could cover.
Cover exists but it is slower and less certain, which means the process quietly waits for one person even when it doesn't have to.
- Worth watching
How do you find out why you lost one?
We ask, sometimes, if we know them well.
You hear from the ones who will tell you, which is a biased sample — they are the ones you already have a relationship with. The ones who went quiet are the ones worth hearing.
About this section: The same map as on the industry page, now marked from their own answers. It opens on the part of the process they named.
The same answers, drawn on your process map.
Red marks the drag.
- CustomerEmails, EDI, portal or phone
- CarriersLTL, parcel, dedicated
- Where the drag isTake the orderReceive it, key it, confirm it, release it
- Worth watchingPick and move itPick, quote the freight, book, dispatch, track
- Bill and resolveReconcile the delivery, handle claims, invoice, audit the carrier
- CustomerReceives the goods and the invoice
- Manage the accountReorders, account reviews, the rate review or re-tender
Click a step marked with a plus to see the work inside it.
- Where the drag is
- Worth watching
About this section: The blueprints that touch that drag, ranked, each with the answer that put it there. Press “See it on your map” to watch one take over the steps it would do.
What we would scope first.
The one blueprint that touches the drag you described.
Inbound order processing
An agent takes orders arriving by email and PDF, normalizes them, and files them into the ERP with exceptions routed to a human.
Because you said “Email and phone calls. Someone reads and keys every one.”
All 9 distribution & logistics blueprints, including the ones your answers didn't point to.
About this section: Where nothing in the catalog covers what they described, the page says so rather than stretching a match.
One thing your answers point at is outside what we model today.
- key-person dependency
None of our blueprints covers this yet. That doesn't rule it out: it would be scoped the same way, and we'd rather look at it with you than call something nearby a match. Talk it through on a call.
Your process, not theirs.
About fifteen questions about how the work actually moves, most of them a single tap. At the end, leave your email and see your process map marked with your answers, what stands out and the agents that fit.
You'd be talking to Robert Dopart directly: the person accountable for the build, not a salesperson.
Other examples: manufacturing, hospitality & real estate and professional services.