Case study

McNab’s

Skynamo helps with increased sales by identifying the gaps

McNab’s was founded in 2000 by Rupert McKerron, who wanted to help other people overcome chronic tiredness as well as protect themselves from the harmful stresses of modern living, as he had done to cope with his own chronic fatigue syndrome.

“So we make good-for-you, functional foods, drinks and supplements,” says Nobesuthu Sibanda, the company’s sales support manager.

McNab’s products can be found in large retailers and pharmacy groups such as Clicks, Dis-Chem, Shoprite and Checkers, but the in-house team only handles Spars and Pick n Pays across the country – the rest of the sales activities are outsourced.

Still, it’s a smallish team, given the number of Spars and Pick n Pays they must cover. “We have a team of seven reps nationally,” says Nobesuthu. “We have four in Gauteng, one in the Eastern Cape, one in the Western Cape, and one in KZN.”

Skynamo has been part of the McNab’s set-up since 2017, when it was still known as Honeybee. Nobesuthu wasn’t working in sales at that time, but recalls that one of the managers introduced it to McNab’s.

She says the major benefit it delivers for them is keeping track of sales activity. “Before, we had to rely on every invoice from the reps,” she says. “After they took an order, they had to send us a slip, and a picture of what they’d done, to be captured. Basically, it was a lot of manual work. So the idea was to automate that.

“There was so much unnecessary admin,” she says. “You spent a lot of time typing up smaller stuff, when you could be applying your brain to something bigger, something greater, instead.”

She says that as a back-office user, she finds it very easy to use. “It’s easy for me to get the reports that I’m looking for. Everything is at the click of a button,” she says. “And it’s also easy for me to see where my guys are driving to in terms of route deviation, so I can see if people are following the route. I can see if there any issues arising.

“It’s made the reps’ lives easier too, because the history that Skynamo keeps makes it easier for the guys to remember what happened the last time they visited the store,” she says. “It helps them to keep tabs on things, and it also reminds them if they have tasks they need to do.”

One of the reports she finds particularly useful, she says, is store sales history. “It provides a picture to our team, and shows us where there are gaps – and that helps us to increase our sales, because it highlights where we need to focus.”