ERP Leader VAI Kicks Off 2024 With AI Partnership; New Proton Agreement Strengthens Products Offerings

Ronkonkoma, NY, January 9, 2024 – VAI, a leading ERP software developer, and Proton, the leading AI-powered customer relationship management (CRM) solution purpose-built for distributors, today announced they have entered into an agreement whereby VAI is integrating Proton into its offerings for mid-market B2B companies.

“VAI's ERP experience and Proton’s CRM capabilities form a potent solution for elevating sales and operational efficiency,” said Ralph Sosbee, Director of ECommerce for VAI. “This partnership enhances VAI’s portfolio of revenue-generating solutions and services. By collaborating with Proton, we equip sales reps with proactive recommendations for customer engagement and deliver personalized product suggestions to customers as they shop online. This unified approach ensures a consistent customer experience across all sales channels, encouraging more informed purchasing decisions, larger order sizes, and higher profit margins. It's about creating a unified ecosystem that anticipates and meets the needs of both customers and sales teams."

Distributors use Proton for complete visibility into customer activities and untapped opportunities, driving new business and share of wallet growth while reducing customer churn. Unlike other CRMs that bog teams down with data entry, Proton makes teams more productive with less input. Proton proactively pinpoints high-priority customers for sales teams, detects products due for customer reorder, and identifies potential wallet-share gaps across various sales channels. Proton also offers an e-commerce personalization feature as an add-on. This tool creates tailored product suggestions for each customer, based on their activity across different channels. Additionally, the CRM interface allows sales teams to view customer actions on e-commerce sites, facilitating timely follow-ups on abandoned carts and enhancing customer conversations.

“Our collaboration with VAI merges mutual strengths to provide a complete sales enhancement solution, more efficient sales management, enhanced customer interactions, and increased digital sales,” said Benj Cohen, Founder and CEO, Proton. ”Customers typically see a 5x return on investment in terms of gross margin when using our solutions.”

VAI’s 2023 achievements and growth milestones also include:

• Partnership with Greenwing Technology – The VAI and Greenwing connection integrates a VAI S2K eBusiness eCommerce catalog into VAI’s ERP system – a gateway connecting the transfer of cart and order information, allowing the systems to communicate seamlessly. Using Greenwing as the intermediary between VAI S2K/S2K eCommerce allows a one-time setup on the VAI side providing integration into unlimited eProcurement systems, such as Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer, and many others, maximizing ROI. The ability to provide invoices electronically allows completely paperless transactions between vendor and customer.

• Partnership with Kount, an Equifax Company – VAI’s partnership with Kount helps safeguard customers’ internal fraud detection so they can keep pace with sophisticated criminal and fraudulent activity. Pre-built Kount integrations help VAI ERP customers quickly onboard, avoid high-risk refund- and dispute-heavy customers, resolve complaints to avoid chargebacks, and conveniently track and monitor activity through data and reporting interfaces. 

• 2023 VAI Prevail Conference – IT and business professional customers from manufacturers, distributors, and retailers met with VAI experts, received product demonstrations, and explored VAI technology including: mobile, analytics, warehouse, Sales Force automation, financial management, and eBusiness applications across enterprise, food, and pharmaceutical solutions. Key topics also included cloud computing and security, with VAI showcasing best practices to mitigate threat actors, fortifying firewalls from ransomware, and overnight infrastructure disaster recovery plans.

“This was the first in person VAI conference I was able to attend, and it was everything I expected and more,” said Abby Binz, Account Executive at IBM, a VAI partner. “VAI did a great job of creating an engaging experience for customers and partners. It really highlights the impact that VAI has and how much the company values the people they work with daily. The sessions were highly engaging and educational.”

• Industry awards and recognitions:

• VAI Cloud Wins Bronze Stevie® Award for Best Platform as a Service, 21st Annual American Business Awards – The VAI Cloud platform was recognized for its innovative capabilities and benefits for customers hosting their ERP workloads in VAI Cloud.

• VAI Included on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 List – CRN’s annual Solution Provider 500 ranks North America’s largest solution providers by revenue and serves as the gold standard for recognizing some of the channel’s most successful companies. VAI was recognized as a top solution provider for its Enterprise software, which provides mid-sized businesses with cloud-based ERP solutions across the hardgoods, food, and pharmaceutical industries. VAI Enterprise was built to improve performance and drive growth.

About Proton            

Proton is recognized as the most trusted CRM purpose-built for distributors. Proton stands out by breaking the norm of tedious data entry, common in many CRMs. Proton gives users more than they put in, making teams more productive with less input. Using advanced AI, Proton offers recommendations and nudges sales reps towards customers requiring attention, identifies wallet share gaps, detects spend anomalies, and suggests product substitutes and add-ons. This shift from reactive to proactive engagement helps sales reps anticipate customer needs and address potential issues before they arise, effectively preventing churn and nurturing long-term relationships. Proton is the go-to CRM for industry leaders like ORS Nasco, R.S. Hughes, and BPI. Distributors using Proton report tangible results, including an average 8% increase in sales.

About VAI

VAI is a leading independent mid-market ERP software developer renowned for its flexible solutions and ability to automate critical business functions for the distribution, manufacturing, retail, and service sectors. VAI's software solutions are backed by a wealth of experience and a reputation for excellence that countless companies rely on. With specific ERP solutions for hard goods, food, and pharmaceutical companies, VAI has helped some of the most recognized companies address key industry requirements and deliver bottom-line results. VAI continues to innovate with new solutions that leverage business intelligence, analytics, mobility, and cloud technology to help customers make more informed business decisions and empower their mobile workforce. For more information, visit https://www.vai.net.