Below is our recent interview with Amadou T. Agne, the Founder and CEO of Vogueboard Inc.:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Vogueboard?
Amadou T. Agne: We are a Maryland-based technology company offering B2B eCommerce and Sales Management solutions for the flooring industry. Our cloud-based platform connects building material suppliers and vendors with motivated buyers for increased online visibility, client engagement, and sales opportunities. Vogueboard users have instant access to the tools needed to attract new customers, develop relationships, and digitize the entire B2B sales process for a completely paperless transaction experience. The platform is accessible from any mobile device and allows the sales teams to work remotely from anywhere.
Q: Can you tell us something more about your B2B eCommerce platform? How does it work?
Amadou T. Agne: Our platform is offered as SaaS, so no need to download and install any software. You can go to our website, sign up for a free account and get started in minutes without any upfront fee. The platform has the following integrated modules:
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
• eCommerce (Webstore, B2B Sales Automation, Marketplace)
• Networking
The unique advantages of our platform are that it’s designed specifically for the flooring industry and all necessary sales management tools are available in one place. By integrating eCommerce with CRM we allow our users to have a 360-degree view on their accounts or contacts, like quickly pulling a record in CRM and seeing all previous interactions, phone calls, emails, meetings, quotes, orders, invoices, deliveries, etc. No stand-alone CRM system or accounting software offers this, and ERP systems are too expensive and complex for our target customers.
Our Networking module allows customers to browse profiles of other platform users by organization type and easily connect with vendors by sending an electronic account application. We invite not only sellers and buyers of flooring materials, but Architects and Designers as well, so that they can find commercial-grade products from different manufacturers in one place, add product specs to their digital product library and order free samples.
Suppliers and retailers who want to sell to retail customers can do so easily by displaying their products on our specialized Marketplace for flooring materials. Vogueboard acts as an online dealer and handles payment processing, delivery coordination and customer service. We provide vendors a full control over the final retail prices by territory, shipping options and minimum order quantities.
We strive towards making our interface user-friendly, simple and intuitive, so that users can easily understand how it works without contacting our customer service. At the same time, we are ready to hold hands of our customers by providing them unlimited training and support online or by phone.
Q: Who are your major customers and how do their benefit from your services?
Amadou T. Agne: Our target customers are small and medium-size flooring manufacturers, distributors and dealers/retailers. They are facing significant challenges disrupting the whole industry, like the following:
• Increased importance of internet presence and omni-channel sales
• B2B buyers expect seamless customer experience as in B2C online transactions
• International flooring suppliers are entering US market with cheaper alternatives
• eCommerce giants like Amazon and big box stores like Walmart are threatening retailers
The building materials industry is conservative and lagging behind in terms of sales automation and eCommerce. Most salespeople are ‘old school’ and still using phone call, faxes and emails for order processing. According to Hubspot research, salespeople spend as little as one third of their time on selling. The other two thirds is spent on writing emails (21%), entering data (17%), scheduling calls (12%), and internal meetings (12%). Also, they usually have to work with several stand-alone software programs and manually fill out multiple forms, which leads to human errors.
Our goal is to help the flooring suppliers successfully overcome the above challenges. For instance, our Private Labeling and Dropshipping solutions help manufacturers and their trading partners to increase sales without triggering price competition and cut costs on stocking materials, making the whole supply chain more efficient and resilient.
Q: How is COVID-19 changing the way you’re doing business? How has the industry changed?
Amadou T. Agne: These are challenging times for the whole industry. Many manufacturers had to reduce the production volume or experienced logistics disruptions, most distributors and retailers closed their showrooms – whether ordered by their state government or voluntarily. Majority of employees switched to working from home, and those companies who were set up for such remote work are disrupted less.
This COVID-19 pandemic hit harder those companies who were complacent and relied on traditional sales methods and manual order processing. Companies with no CRM, eCommerce storefront and B2B sales automation are no longer visible to online buyers and can’t sell without a physical showroom or face-to-face interactions. Our cloud-based platform is an optimal tool to keep their salespeople productive even when working from home. They can setup a free virtual showroom, transact with both B2B and B2C buyers and follow up using the CRM system. I believe this pandemic crisis will accelerate the adoption of new technologies and implementation of eCommerce solutions to make businesses more efficient and resilient.
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Q: What are the company’s plans and goals for the future?
Amadou T. Agne: Currently we target only US and Canada-based companies, but in the future, we plan to expand internationally. Also, our solutions can help not only the flooring companies, but other building materials businesses as well. As I mentioned above, I expect all companies start investing more in cloud-based solutions and our platform with its freemium model is well-positioned to accommodate small and medium size companies in the building materials industry.
