ASI Hosting Supplier Town Hall On ESP Integration

September 15 webinar with ASI CTO Armughan Rafat will feature live demo with BIC Graphic

TREVOSE, PA – September 12, 2016 – The Advertising Specialty Institute® (ASI) today announced it is hosting an online supplier town hall on September 15 with ASI Chief Technology Officer Armughan Rafat and Top 40 supplier BIC Graphic demonstrating ASI’s latest innovation, direct integration with ESP®.

Click here to join the Thursday, September 15, town hall webinar, “ESP’S New Supplier Integration Platform,” taking place from 1-1:30 p.m. ET. The webinar, which has already attracted 175 suppliers, will include a live demonstration of direct connectivity with Tim Nale, the director of IT for BIC Graphic North America.

The webinar is open to any ASI supplier. ASI’s first demonstration of its all-new ESP platform at ASI Show®Chicago in July, also led by Rafat, attracted record attendance. During the September 15 webinar, Rafat will present ESP’s new integration platform and demonstrate the many benefits a direct connection can have on supplier businesses of any size.

ASI recently announced that BIC Graphic and its proprietary brands, BIC® (asi/40480) and Norwood® (asi/74400), are now directly connected to ASI’s ESP, which means distributors can submit orders for BIC and Norwood products directly from the ESP Web® platform, eliminating the need to send orders via email, fax or phone. In addition, distributors can now check inventory levels in real time for those products and receive real-time order status updates directly from the suppliers – all in ESP.

With 2015 sales of $321.2 million, BIC Graphic ranked No. 4 on ASI’s most recent annual Top 40 ranking of the biggest companies in the $22 billion promotional products industry.

As of today, over 75 suppliers – a mix of Top 40, mid-sized and small companies – are in the process of integrating with ESP, with more than 30 suppliers already offering live inventory.

During the 30-minute webinar, ASI technology experts will be on hand to answer questions submitted by participants. Afterward, suppliers are welcome to join ASI’s waiting list for integration. The recorded webinar will also be posted to ASI’s website, www.dev-asicentral.com.

“Given ASI’s access to over 20,000 distributors and over 3,000 suppliers, with over 70% of industry product searches already going through ASI’s technology platforms, we are far and away the best industry provider of comprehensive connectivity between industry partners,” said Rafat, an innovative and technology savvy executive with nearly 20 years of demonstrated success in running technology organizations for mission critical, billion dollar and small startup businesses.

Suppliers have told ASI that about 70% of promotional product orders sent by distributors are incomplete, leading to numerous emails and follow-up phone calls. With integration, distributors can see inventory and product info at a glance and get continual order updates, increasing business efficiency.

With the just-added ESP CRM and Orders, distributors can easily add existing contacts and view all past conversations by clicking on a company’s profile, where all orders, quotes and shared presentations pop into view, simplifying re-orders. Since it’s synced with ESP’s robust product database, the new ESP Orders auto-populates all product data, eliminating rekeying of information.

By managing all daily business operations in ESP, distributors will save an estimated 45 minutes per day, thanks to increased efficiencies.

The September supplier town hall will be followed at a future date by a distributor town hall and demonstration hosted by Rafat and Julie Murphy, ASI’s senior vice president of distributor services.

For more information on integration or the town hall webinar, contact Christy Tramdaks, ASI’s director of integration solutions, at [email protected].

About ASI
The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI®) serves a network of 25,000 suppliers, distributors and decorators in the $22 billion promotional products industry. ASI’s flagship product, the technology platform ESP®, manages the industry’s entire supply and marketing chain. ASI also produces award-winning digital and print content, live events and educational programs that enable companies in 61 countries to be more efficient, productive and profitable. ASI’s Counselor® magazine provides the most authoritative business content in the industry, and the ASI Certification Program features 500+ live and online education courses for over 40,000 professionals. The company, family owned and operated since 1962, is proud to have been consistently ranked among the “Best Places to Work” in Philadelphia and Bucks County, PA. For more info: www.dev-asicentral.com.