xSellerate: supporting sales representatives with real-time information in customer dialogs

Abstract

The introduction of 64 bit address spaces in commodity operating systems and the constant drop in hardware prices make large capacities of main memory in the order of terabytes possible. Storing the entire ERP data of large companies in main memory becomes technically feasible and economically viable. Especially columnoriented in-memory databases are a promising platform for enterprise applications to run even complex reports in merely seconds. Response-times in the order of seconds mean that we can use enterprise applications in completely new ways, for example, on mobile devices. In this paper, we demonstrate how mobile applications backed by in-memory data management can support mobile workers. We illustrate this with xSellerate, a running prototype of an application that supports sales representatives with real-time product recommendations and availability checks during customer dialogs. This way, organizations can leverage their operational data to support their sales force in the field and thus, achieve a competitive advantage over rival companies.